Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll Thinks "Most People Think Rape Is Sexy"; This Is Notoriously More Complicated Than It Might Seem

Anderson Cooper cuts hastily to commercial.
   Uncomfortable though it is to hear someone say it on the teevee...and though Carroll isn't exactly right...what she said isn't entirely unrelated to the truth. If we're a bit loose with the interpretations, she could be construed as being closer to the truth than Cooper is. First, rape fantasies are, apparently, very common--especially among women. It's complicated for well-known reasons, and obviously doesn't mean that women actually want to be raped--but that goes without saying. (Though in the current climate of insanity, one has to say all sorts of things that go without saying.) Of course Cooper is right that most people recognize rape as a violent assault--but it's possible that he is alluding to the feminist myth, prevalent for the last forty years or so, that rape is "not about sex, but about power" / control / domination. Another version of the myth has it that rape is a political crime motivated by hatred of women and/or the aim of maintaining their subordination as a group to men as a group. Actual evidence clearly indicates that rape is largely / mainly about sex--rape rates tend to track ages at which women are most sexually attractive. Though this is complicated to some extent by the fact that younger people tend to be more vulnerable and to have more active social lives. The feminist myths are also disconfirmed by the high rates of homosexual rape. Feminists sometimes try to explain this latter away with some hand-waving about men being put into female roles...but such ad hoc self-sealing needn't be taken seriously.
   Strictly speaking, Cooper is righter than Carroll--but they each could be thinking these other things; at least they're worth mentioning.
   Carroll's statement, incidentally, made her look weird, and I'd guess it did a lot to undermine her credibility with however many people there are who aren't immediately sure what to make of them. Many on the right dismissed her automatically, of course, and the left / the media (but I repeat myself) automatically believed her. I don't know what to make of the accusation, but I haven't been able to give it much attention. Taken by itself, a 25-year-old uncorroborated accusation would normally be something I'd think I should neither believe to be true nor believe to be false. But, as I've said, I'm inclined to find other accusations (of sexual assault short of rape) against him pretty credible. So that raises the likelihood that Carroll's accusation is true, from my perspective.
   Almost forgot: the Zero Hedge headline says that Carroll said that rape is "sexy," that that's obviously false. That kind of spin really pisses me off. It's clearly intentional. What she says is that she thinks that most people think that. She doesn't say it of herself.