An advice columnist who has accused Donald Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s has raised eyebrows online after telling CNN host Anderson Cooper that most people think of rape as “sexy.”
Jean. E Carroll was appearing on Cooper’s show on Monday night when he asked her why she didn’t like to use the word rape. “I was not thrown on the ground and ravaged. The word rape carries so many sexual connotations. This was not sexual. It just hurt,” she said, before things took a turn for the bizarre.
“I think most people think of rape as being sexy — think of the fantasies,” Carroll continued, before an uncomfortable Cooper stumbled and quickly cut to a commercial break.
The comment lit up a debate, with people saying its a “repulsive” and “disgusting” way to talk about rape and others suggesting that the Trump accuser was not a good spokesperson for rape victims and even doubted the credibility of her story.
There were those who took Carroll’s side, noting she had made the comment in response to Trump’s earlier denial of rape on the basis that she was not his “type.” Sympathetic tweeters said she was trying to explain that rapists are often motivated by power and not sexual attraction.
Others offered that if content on most porn websites is anything to go by, many people do seem to find rape or rape “fantasies” sexy.