Statutes of Limitations

Women’s bodily autonomy and the power to dissent

I had planned on writing something else this week, but the judicial ruling in favor of the case of North American author E. Jean Carroll against former president of the United States Donald J. Trump led me to a more urgent matter. To be fair, this is not yet another take on an affluent, white woman’s victory, in spite of so many under-represented non-white, and especially migrant women who have faced and continue to face sexual violence, sometimes even having to work for/with their own abusers after being violated, in order to make a living and survive. In fact, I believe E. Jean Carroll’s successful civil suit represents an intersectional win for all women, much like what the #MeToo movement symbolized when it took on heavyweight figures such as Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein.

As part of Trump’s guilty verdict on sexual assault and defamation in the civil trial, E Jean Carroll was awarded U$5 million in damages, which are to be paid by the defendant. Even though the decision has no criminal value, i.e. no actual jail time for Donald, it is a more than symbolic victory for victims of abuse everywhere. While the trial has consequences in the lives of all involved, including potential threats to the well-being of the jury members who supported the decision, it is the recognition of Donald J. Trump as a sexual abuser, one who is liable to punitive measures, even if not necessarily incarceration, which carries more value. One might argue that the monetary sum debt to Carroll might actually be much more degrading to a narcissistically disordered man who has built his brand and his value around being, ahem, a billionaire, than being thrown in a cell without access to mass media attention.

The E. Jean Carroll v Donald Trump defamation suit had claimed her sexual assault in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman store in New York City in 1996, which followed by Trump’s destruction of her reputation, through the vomit-inducing declarations he made on her as “not being his type.” Although the guilty verdict did not comprise a guilty judgment on Trump’s alleged rape of the journalist, it did find him guilty of her sexual assault and defamation of her reputation for accusing him of such a horrible violence. 

Many people have commented on E. Jean Carroll’s 27-year wait to pursue legal consequences for her assailant: “27 years ago!!! Just at this moment! Why hasn't she told it before?”—as you can find written on social media, for example. But her claim to court was facilitated exactly by a civil regulation signed into law in May 2022 in the state of New York, which made it possible for victims of sexual crimes whose prescriptive period (a.k.a. statute of limitations) had already lapsed to bring suit against their alleged abusers. The “New York State Adult Survivors Act,” popularly know as the “ASA,” created a “one-year window for certain survivors of sexual assault to seek civil damages against their perpetrators and the institutions that may have protected or concealed those perpetrators.” This window takes place from the moment this legislation became effective, on November 24, 2022, for a year, until November 23, 2023.

Indeed, E. Jean Carroll’s measure of justice conferred by the jury responsible for finding the facts of her case against the former president of the United States, and alleged abuser of at least 26 other women, has wider repercussions than just her judicial reparation. The ruling can also be an important precedent for the decision on other civil suits brought by the advent of the ASA, such as those of formerly incarcerated women seeking justice for sexual violence perpetrated by their correction officers and other staff in New York state’s jails and prisons, as well as for institutional coverups of rape and sexual assault such as the one being alleged by a former student from the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in the early 1970s against then-artistic director Mitchell Nestor. As a matter of fact, E. Jean Carroll’s favorable judicial outcome might even help her in bringing forth a new defamation suit against The Donald, after he made vile comments about her and the civil suit at a CNN town hall just a day after the $5m sex abuse trial verdict. 

I must confess, the reverberations of this civil trial, all the way across the Atlantic from me, have even touched deep upon my soul, dear reader. I don’t often speak or write about my own experience with sexual assault. Not because I’m scared of it, but because it seemed easier to push it down, bottle it up, and try to forget it. Truly, that’s what my brain attempted to do with it: I forgot my own sexual assault and remembered it a year later, after a meaningless fight with my ex triggered the memory of it back to light. I saw myself simmering in the metaphorical pool of blood I had cleaned from my own body a year before, right after the sexual act with another person, which had partially happened with my consent; hence, my difficulty in considering it as rape until I did. 

A handsome, tall, white German man, he had been seducing me for a few weeks in a class we took together for some months. From the seemingly innocuous flirtation came an invitation to his apartment "to go see his Christmas tree,” where a friendly lunch turned into an “afternoon delight.” I never truly understood how what came to be happened, and the fact that I gave him oral sex after an act of violence would probably send my critics into the same diatribes I see being directed at E. Jean Carroll for “waiting 27 years to speak up.” He, too, is a powerful man. A professor, and lawyer, at a prestigious university in Germany. Who am I, and who was I, in that moment, to be able to accuse someone on that level of such a heinous act?

I saw the blood when I went to the bathroom to pass stool after penetrative sexual intercourse. As I write this, I don’t feel uncomfortable, but trying to put it into aseptic, almost academic language, seems far from the reality. I didn’t understand why there had been so much blood. How did I not feel any pain? A year later, when the trigger with my ex brought back these memories, I remembered the scene in that guy’s bathroom, and I started to think: “Did I get drugged?” How did I not feel any pain during what led to that bleeding?

I gaslighted myself for months after remembering my assault. I kept thinking I had made it up, that it was just a normal sexual experience, and that I hardly ever have penetrative sex anyway (which could explain the bleeding), so I should just put it to rest. But why was there so much blood? The more I tried to forget, the more I had memories coming back triggered by the narcissistic-like abusive things he’d say every time he’d meet me again after the assault. Yes, I continued taking that class for a few more months, until I stopped altogether, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

To read on E. Jean Carroll’s victory feels, even if in a symbolic way, like my own vindication. If someone as powerful as Donald J. Trump can be considered guilty of sexual assault, and forced to pay a hefty fine for behaving like he owns women’s bodies and women’s autonomy makes me feel like I can get justice for myself. For all of you out there who have been raped and/or sexually assaulted before, you are not alone. I see you. I hear you. And until the day you can find healing from your pain, just know that there’s nothing more powerful than the love you can give to yourself. Honor your body, and your possibilities for autonomy. I know the world doesn’t seem to support us, but there will be better and brighter days ahead, I promise. It’s my duty and responsibility as an artist, and as a person, to dream and imagine a society rid of violence, and to bring that forth to reality. 

To E. Jean Carroll: thank you. You are brave, and I commend you for the great service you have done not just for yourself, but for others.

Namaskar!

Photo credit: © Henri Senders