In September 2018, I wrote about being sexually assaulted more than 40 years ago. Before the piece was published, an editor suggested using the word "rape" in the piece to describe what had happened to me. I insisted that I wanted to use the phrase "sexual assault" instead, and I cobbled together a reason to explain why. I said that in those years, one didn't think of rape as a man forcing himself inside you on a leather couch in a sleek, shiny office. Rape happened in dark alleys and on cold, deserted streets that smelled like garbage. So I had never, in those years or since, identified my experience in that way.
Patti Davis: I understand why E. Jean Carroll doesn’t want to use the word ‘rape.’ I didn’t, either.
