Trump Sexual Abuse Verdict Upheld

 

A federal appeals court has issued a written opinion upholding Trump's defamation verdict which found him liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll:

"We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the 2nd Circuit said. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”

There is something about this case that fascinates me: the first defamation case found him liable with a $5 million dollar verdict. The second, at which he briefly testified, awarded an additional $83.3 million in damages. Something about Trump was very unsympathetic to a jury. 

Only the Rapes that Matter

 

It was Elise Stefanik who let me know how Republican women were going to wear their shame this year: gossamer, barely there, nearly naked--shame like a second skin, all-surrounding, she announced that E. Jean Carroll was a liar and the media was just fluffing her up. Was the determination of his guilt actually made by a jury? So what? Juries can be misled. Peerless leader may have dozens of women who accuse him, but the reality is, he has had, nonetheless, dozens of women. Because he is who and what he is. And the GOP has made peace with that. He's their sex pest. Their letch. 

It's hard for me to think they haven't granted him droit de seigneur over the new brides honeymooning at Mar-a Lago or Bedminster.  After all, we knew about the TMZ tape and dozens of claims of sexual assault back in 2016. And he somehow won, with the support of the religious right. People like Katie Britt, who gave the SOTU rebuttal, support Trump, even while she decries the horrific sex trafficking that has, supposedly, something to do with lax border control right now, while she speaks of things that happened 20 years ago, and not in the US at all. 

Does she just not know that Trump goes way back with traffickers like Jeffery Epstein? Are we just going to ignore who Trump's associates have been? 

I just don't think the sleaze-puddle that is Trump's modeling business and beauty contest associations have been really explored. There's reason to think the whole Q/Pizzagate sex dungeon mole-children shit is just weirdo projection to distract from ""billionaire"" Trump's constant penising around female people, whether they invited it or not. 

TWGB: Wondering About His Super Seedy Ass

 

This could strike some as reminiscent of when Manafort obtained $16M in loans approved by bank CEO Stephen Calk, who was seeking positions in the Trump administration. Calk was convicted for that by a jury in Manhattan. Press release by DOJ ⬇️ https://t.co/WAFC0JBLQY https://t.co/TmGwu2K1s9

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) March 8, 2024

It says a lot about Trump that when he finally does post a supersedeas bond to forestall collections activity in anticipation of appeal of the defamation civil case, instantly people go to work trying to find out the sketchy part: Who is the surety company? What's the catch? Does he have a cosigner? Isn't someone from that company a crony? Does that company have ties to Russia? Aren't they mentioned in his fraud trial?

So, um, yeah, there's something possibly sketchy in there--it's TrumpWorld. He wanted to waive having to put up a bond for this case altogether on the grounds that he was good for it, and then turned around and had paper filed in his fraud civil case implying no, he is not good for hundreds of millions of dollars. (You know, the one where he was accused of inflating his wealth and claimed he WAS SO worth hundreds of millions, liquid.) 

TWGB: It Should Cost Him More

 

The news that the jury in Trump defamation trial of E. Jean Carroll came back fairly swiftly with a verdict in the amount of $83 million gave me a sense of deja vu--it hadn't taken that long for a jury to decide the first defamation case in Ms. Carroll's favor, either. Now, our scandal-ridden former president owes her nearly $90 million. His not-especially good lawyer, Alina Habba, says they will appeal.

I don't think they should. I think they are the most unappealing bunch imaginable. 

Maybe delay has been a key strategy of Trump's with respect to his legal woes during an exceptionally legally contentious life, but this is wearing thin and is bound to have diminishing returns. Can he put up the bond for the amount of his judgments? Is he as liquid as he said he was (considering he's got the likely 9-figure judgment in his NY civil trial coming up)? And isn't he just bringing more and more attention to his miserable behavior?

As I've long covered here, his behavior doesn't diminish him in the eyes of the true MAGA believer. They can dismiss that Trump is a life-long sex pest because the real problem they have is with someone pointing it out. Take Elise Stefaniak or Nancy Mace--they don't care. And maybe TrumpWorld doesn't bat an eyelash that Trump's defenders include Matt Schlapp and Rudy Giuliani*--both under scrutiny for sexual misconduct. 

Trump Is Enjoying His Primary Win in a Normal Way

Trump: You can’t let people get away with bullshit. And when I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn’t so fancy pic.twitter.com/OFvJwbNLq2

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 24, 2024

Was it a little too close? I think it's funny that Trump had to trash, of all things, Nikki Haley's clothes. MEOW! How catty! He also threatened her a little bit, saying:  

Addressing a crowded hotel ballroom in Nashua, he gave Haley a dark warning: “Just a little note to Nikki. She’s not going to win. But if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes, and I could tell you five reasons why already.

“Not big reasons, little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, that she will be under investigation within minutes, and so would Ron [DeSantis] have been, but he decided to get out.”

"By those people"--hm? And he could tell you five reasons why! Is he saying he has some dirt on his former UN Ambassador that just might get loose? The skulking little extortionist, Trump!  He's clearly a bit bothered, don't you think?

For her part, she says she's staying in until Super Tuesday, which means going through a likely more depressing loss in her home state of South Carolina--but I think I can see why she's taking the gamble. Trump isn't inevitable, and he might even know it. He's showing clear signs of accelerating wear, and who will be left?  He's threatening her, when like an out-of-control manbaby he can't seem to stop going on rants about E. Jean Carroll--in the midst of his defamation trial? The man is a demented liar!

The trick is--after depicting him as demented liar (which was, let's be honest, always a fair description of Trump), coming back around to endorse him in the event he keeps winning without a major blow-up will be...fraught. 

In other news, President Biden won NH via write-in vote and didn't campaign there at all, at all. 

You Really Can't Fake Smart

At the rape defamation trial today, Alina Habba demonstrated that you can't fake smart in front of actually smart people. This isn't to say that she's dumb, but she was just not ready for this trial. Now, maybe recently departed counsel Tacopina was supposed to take point on this and looking the whole thing over, realized there wasn't a great case when there was nothing left to do but try to mitigate harm to the client, and Trump insisted on showing his ass up and not being remotely helpful, but I think she is trying to help create the illusion of Trump as the victim here in a way that isn't especially sympathetic. 

The argument that the plaintiff is just a fame whore who wanted this attention might be what Trump wants to convey, but the "she wanted this" part is...fraught with the idea that she, as a victim of sexual assault, wanted something from her attacker. 

Juries sometimes surprise, though. I find the argument appalling, but then again, I'm a feminist with a real problem with rape culture. And yet, it is all around us. 

This is one of those moments where the idea that Trump makes good choices or picks the best people wears thin, though. He talked to no one in particular during the trial (where he is not compelled to attend, which is why he has no especial need to be there if he has a funeral or any other pressing matter to attend to) and was advised by the judge that he could be tossed from the proceedings because he couldn't control himself. 

So, Iowa Picked the Rapist with 91 Felony counts?

 

I don't especially enjoy the primary season because the idea of caucuses themselves are dense and dumb to me--what the whole fuck is going on with those? People are dropping votes randomly into paper bags and empty popcorn buckets. Who knows who is showing up? (I see no ID's in the deep freeze, they don't need these when the voters are all Y.T.'s.) 

And then there's Iowa itself--an entire state that feels like a FOX news set-up in a rural PA diner no more than ten miles from the nearest militia training site. What gets me is the state gets these political creatures camping out among them, speechifying at them, trying to shake hands with them for at least six months out of the year, and when the inevitable man/woman-in the street interviews take place, they just say the most normie, uninformed things. Like, one guy was hung up on where Vivek Ramaswamy was from because of 9/11. There were no Hindu people with Indian ancestry having anything to do with that. And if he was concerned, how about looking up anything at all ever? Candidates do townhalls, have debates, have featured articles in newspapers and magazines and there's FUCKING WIKIPEDIA and some dolt allowed to vote doesn't know where this man's people are from. OR who did 9/11. 

One young lady said she was just thinking about Jesus and how he died for our sins, and wasn't that why Trump was going through all these trials? No, damn it, I want to yell--you weren't thinking that; Trump and every asshole warming up the crowds for him told you that and it somehow drilled its way into the thing you pick out sandwich fixin's with. Being in trouble for defaming one of his rape/assault/harassment victims has NOTHING to do with you. He stole government docs belonging to the US Gov't which is basically all of us, and that is a crime against you. The insurrection was a crime against our government. Also against you. 

How in the hell did about half the caucus goers decide the guy who has been determined to be a rapist and a fraud, is twice-impeached, and had a whole bathroom's worth of White House docs, PLUS, horked out of his Florida home is still somehow fit to be president?

TWGB: Fit to be Gagged

 

This is not the judge’s wife’s account. He is posting lies to incite violence, plain and simple. pic.twitter.com/P2d3UKrrYE

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 1, 2023

Trump's vicious attacks on his detractors have long been including lies--but attacking the wife of the judge in his civil case in NY supposedly without checking if this even plausibly is her account makes it really hard to say he shouldn't be clapped into a cell overnight for his flaunting of his gag order, recently reinstated, and for very good reasons. The man has earned his gagging by what he's been and done. And what his little old fan club wants to see done.

And let's face it, when he lets his mouth just fly, it gets ugly in a hurry. Like when he's demeaning one of his rape victims again. Oh, did it seem like I'm playing like there's multiple rape victims?  I don't know how often I need to read about any man's faults as seen by his victims without thinking "Goddamn, there are victims." 

Anyway, Trump just got caught trying to move money from his business to pay his personal stuff, like his civil debt to E. Jean Carroll and his taxes, by moving money from his business without contacting his court-appointed minder. 

Maybe that's why HER name was in his social media mouth again.  And he should pay for that too.

TWGB: State of Mind-Bad. Looks Bad.

 

There was a lot of legal stuff to do with TrumpWorld yesterday, not even including the five-minutes-under-the-wire Trump legal response to the request for a protective order, but honestly, I'm not seeing the point in going over all that in detail. I mean, it's official--Trump's counterclaim against E. Jean Carroll was dismissed.  His writ of mandamus against Fani Willis is dismissed. 

You can't cover everything. Trump's got five cases in the next nine months, and I bet that feels like he's about to give birth to quintuplets. And tracking all the side characters like Bernie Kerik (turning over docs), Giuliani (selling his house), John Eastman (asking for his disbarment proceedings to be postponed because he's getting indicted)....whew! I'm petty, but I just can't be that kind of compleatist. 

But I am the kind of petty to point out that Dark Brandon is definitely in Trump's head based on yesterday's court filing. Apparently, the touting of the campaign merch is supposedly tweaking Trump based on his recent indictment. So says the Trump team.

Yeah. He's here to eat ice cream and put you in prison and he's all out of ice cream, jack. 

It's absurd. Of course, it has nothing to do with Trump, but that his lawyers put it in there suggests it was on the client's mind. In the just the way his lawyers have to always be on the various chat shows, because if they aren't on television, how does Trump even know they are working? Of course, he wants to try this, and all of his cases, in the court of public opinion and make them political spectacles. 

It's both legally and politically questionable. But he's welcome to it. If it helps his obviously concerned state of mind. 

UPDATE: I'm just going to throw this down here, but I really think I like Judge Chutkan. She ordered the sides to get their act together by Friday to discuss the protective order--Friday. And the DOJ said, "Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we're good." And Trump's lawyers thought it would be funny to say "How's next week?"

So she said, "Fine. 10 AM Friday."  And now they should understand whose court this is. 

Third Time's a Start, Mr. Trump (UPDATED)

 

The above court sketch is Trump pleading not guilty at his third arraignment. His defense plan is to re-litigate the 2020 election, which doesn't sound like a great idea because, as I recall, his campaign legal team lost over 60 cases, and his supporters floated easily debunked lies about the dead voting and more ballots being submitted than had been requested than were requested, and some outright weird stuff regarding Italian satellites, German servers, Chinese thermostats, and Venezuelan voting machines haunted by the ghost of Hugo Chavez. 

In retrospect, the 2020 defense he wants to make still reeks of desperate batshittery and I guess I wonder what sort of lawyers are happy to make this case. But let's face it, Trump is going through lawyers like Kleenex at the moment.

For a fun glimpse into how it's going so far based on yesterday, the case is being made that the DOJ has to demonstrate that Trump knew he lost and that these charges are about Trump's freedom of speech, not his entering into a conspiracy to defraud. Well. That's supposed to be the case. But Alina Habba admitted that everyone knew Trump lost, and John Lauro admitted that Trump did enter into a conspiracy to delay the congressional proceeding on the basis of his false claims. 

So, you know. It's going gggggrrrreeeeeaaaattt.

Oh well. It's Trump fans that should be questioning his representation since, you know, they're paying for it. Same as they paid for the suit that clarified that yes, it is fair to call Trump a rapist. And the way they will pay for the hush money trial and the case against Michael Cohen that could incriminate Trump some more and the stolen docs trial....

UPDATED: Trump thought he'd be cute the very next day:

Donald Trump swore in court yesterday he would not attempt to influence or intimidate witnesses, retaliate against anyone, or in any other way attempt to obstruct the administration of justice.

“Are you prepared to comply?” the magistrate judge asked.

“Yes,” Trump replied. pic.twitter.com/UWxcz0nZ1d

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 4, 2023

We all know what he was trying there; I've pointed out that he doesn't have to be explicit for his little fan club to get the jist and that gagging him because of his fat mouth was always a likelihood--one Trump also would have expected. The above Truth Social post for all the world looks to me like he's threatening retaliation on prosecutors and witnesses, etc. And I would say there's a good argument for pre-trial detention because this unfit man either can't or won't help himself from doing and saying such things. 

TWGB: It's A Bad Week. For Trump, That Is.

 

This is a short one, but Trump got told to shut his face, he really is considered a rapist by regular folks, and also, too, he can't move his hush money trial to federal court because why even?  

So, I know, I know, these aren't the biggest things on the big old list of Trump fails, and especially not while we're awaiting the 1/6 indictments or looking forward to his charging in Georgia, and so on. But I just wanted to point out that Trump is definitely getting his time in court for his huge, big, being a sleaze stuff. 

Which people are noticing more and more. 

UPDATE: You know it's bad when he's like this:

Donald Trump says that it would be "very dangerous" for Jack Smith to put him in jail because of his "passionate" supporters. pic.twitter.com/DsWNbRMWZR

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) July 20, 2023

Is that a threat? Maybe he should be charged for making threats. It really feels like all the more reason why he, and the unreasonable and violent people who like him, should be held accountable, right? Because he's going off.  Off like old raw bacon in the sun. 

UPDATE: If Trump was going to do something he never did before, what would it be? Please a woman? Tell the truth? Give to charity? Be entirely honest? Act like an adult? Pick up the tab? I am sure he's trying to be threatening, but um. There's an awful lot Trump can be trusted to have not ever done before.

Trump, CNN and the Power of Sufficient Cable

 

The CNN town hall featuring former president Donald Trump and former Daily Caller employee Kaitlan Collins was a shitshow as expected. The network stocked the audience with Trumpists because that's obviously fucking normal. And then he got to saw away at his special hobby horses, which was just fun to watch with little to no pushback when you pause to consider this is a twice-impeached racist sex pest who absolutely fumbled COVID-19 and the economy in his last year in office.

This bitter, lying, indicted, tarnished, twice-impeached, treasonous, shambling reprobate should in no way be considered a viable candidate for office and should, in fact, be made a figure of mockery everywhere his grotesque bulk lurches, and yet, he is also the best shot the GOP has for 2024, so the cable news dickheads are going to try and make him...credible? 

So, what we were treated to, one day after a jury unanimously after but three hours of deliberations awarded E. Jean Carroll damages for his sexual battery and defamation of her (and not rape, because it was uncertain whether she noticed his thimble dick actually penetrating her nor ejaculating, leading us to wonder if his small fingers actually brag on him, not the opposite--which is not intended to be defamatory because I am of a scientific aspect and am merely asking questions of a delicate anatomical nature) was more defamation, and rather gross as well.  And the Trump-friendly studio audience loved it. 

I don't know how that resonated with you, Gentle Reader, but it makes me bloody-minded, and I mean more so than usual. It's one thing to despise Trump heart and soul. It's another to take in the values of his fanclub in full and realize they are complete gutter-dwellers with little to redeem them. Deplorables, by choice. 

But maybe a silver lining exists in the sound bites created by the fact of Trump being given adequate cable (which, like saying "hoist on his own petard" suggests the concept of "enough rope"--which is what I think he definitely wished on 1/6 for his running mate, Mike Pence, not that that gormless SOB appreciates it).  He did admit Mike Pence did something wrong in his mind in this little chat. He said he believed that the Georgia SOS owed him votes. He reiterated that he did take documents to Mar-A-Lago, it was great of him to do that, and definitely had the right to declassify them--although whether he did and how and what he took and why he's so pleased with himself stays a mystery. 

We can wonder whether the fluke of this gasbag becoming president was the fault of outlets like CNN giving him "sufficient cable"--platforming him and taking him "seriously, not literally." The image of CNN cameras focusing on an empty podium where the celebrity candidate had grabbed their attention by its figurative lowest chakra remains a sticking point with me regarding their failure to be serious journalists because they wanted his ratings power. 

But in the course of this shitshow, he delivered several soundbites that would certainly be of interest in at least three of his ongoing criminal investigations and at least one civil complaint. 

Maybe it's possible that this creature could be both raised up and brought low by the quality of sufficient cable. 

E. Jean Carroll Got Her Vindication

 

The nine-person jury took less than three hours to deliberate. https://t.co/mcBxgevv7V

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) May 10, 2023

Trump can very well grumble to his little fan club about whether the verdict against him counts as some form of "witch hunt"--but his ridiculous claim that he was denied the right to speak on his own behalf was sheer imbecility--it's a matter of court record that he was given the opportunity to file to testify. He and his legal team did not. This decision today was not just a triumph for E. Jean Carroll, but for other women who know very well what Donald Trump was about. 

And there are dozens. 

Trump can claim women have made their assorted claims against him for mercenary reasons--but we can easily understand how the cost to them to mention his name was potentially high, right? There's a reason the judge in this case wanted the jury to remain anonymous and counseled against their coming forward for the sake of the story. 

I can't help but think of Christine Blasey Ford--who I hope by now has been able to settle and find peace, although she was targeted for abuse and made a threat-driven nomad for the sake of her telling her story regarding Brett Kavanaugh--and I still tend to believe her and am raw that he was not better vetted before being placed in such a position of responsibility. The thing I will always recall in high relief is that her own father seemed to have considered her a class traitor for telling her story. She was supported with faint damn, or maybe damned by faint support. I don't know. But my dad would have wanted to sock someone's nose the hell in for someone fucking with me, and O, the difference to me. 

When E. Jean Carroll talked about being part of the Silent Generation, or the idea of not screaming--it wasn't lost on me, a feminist of Generation X. I get why women don't report to this day, and why women don't scream--because rape is violence, and screaming makes it worse. Because the threat of violence suggests more violence can come your way--and that makes it worse. It doesn't matter what generation you are, you just need to know that sometimes, raising your voice in the moment doesn't help you--

But E. Jean Carroll raised her voice where it counted, and other women who had the experience of Trump's physical boundary breeching also found their voice. 

But as for Trump's political allies, they have decided to make very particular beds to lie in with respect to Trump. Marco Rubio and others simply scoff at the decision by a "New York jury" by which I will pretend I have no idea what they could so specifically mean. 

But I know full well what Republicans already think of women and rape, or women and their right to their bodies.  How can I be more aghast at the GOP than I've already ever been? 

TWGB: April is the Cruelest Month

 

I guess Trump's indictment cherry having been popped, he has no reason to expect the rest of this month to be great, but wow--I don't think it's going to be good for The Donald! For one thing, just this Thursday, he's sitting down again with Leticia James and her crew regarding his NYC civil case over his business practices, and since he repeatedly pled the 5th the first time around, this time isn't going to go any better. See, the thing is, in civil trials there's a thing called adverse inference which means what it says on the label: if someone is pleading the 5th because their testimony might incriminate them, take it at face value that the truth would not set them free. 

He's also facing the E. Jean Carroll civil suit in NYC over his defamation of self-described rape victim E. Jean Carroll. The judge in this case has agreed to anonymity for the jury based on Trump's already egregious behavior regarding judges, prosecutors, witnesses, you name it.  Because he acts like a mafioso. As with the Bragg case in Manhattan, this case highlights how horrific he is to women. 

I really wish people were more aware of this. 

Anyway, there is still the potential for indictments to drop in either the Georgia grand jury case, where racketeering and a broad cast of characters being looked at for indictment figure, and the obviously bad Mar-A-Lago documents case. I am not actually crouching on a case of champagne waiting for those things, but it would be neat, right? 

And then there's the odd thing about Trump filing to block Mike Pence's testimony to the Special Counsel regarding J6--why? Is there a problem with the very honest man Trump had as his Vice-President testifying about what might had led up to that day? And if so why? 

Enquiring minds would like to know. After all, it always has struck me as strange that Trump's impulse is always to obstruct or delay the release of facts about whatever it is he's been up to while he claims he's a pure as the driven snow, and his little fan club hasn't yet caught on and said: "Put up or shut up." 

Anyway, I think it's already been demonstrated that executive privilege appeals are going to fizzle. And with interesting results. I know Trump wants to plead all his cases to the Supreme Court because he picked a third of them, but OTOH, has he offered any really good vacations lately? (I mean really!) 

Anyways, it is starting to look like the season of finding out for Donald Trump, and the season of fucking around is going to have to stop (I know that Trump is loving the idea of courting a gag order re: his running down the DA and judge in his Manhattan case, and I bet his attorneys would LOVE THAT FOR HIM. Also he kinda is earning it.)  

And in other weird news, why hasn't he filed his financial disclosure  yet? (Truth Social is a bit of a struggle-launch, isn't it?)  He's going to be like this the whole election, isn't he? His supporters better start asking the questions that are logically piling up. And just deal with the reality that they don't really know if they are funding a campaign for president, or just the legal fees for a serial criminal. 

TWGB: Tuesday, He Says

 

Trump says Tuesday is when he's supposed to get arrested, and he also wants his little fan club to show out and protest his comeuppance, and none of the public info regarding the Manhattan case seems to be about to be announced and they are still sorting out the advance-work on possible Trump fuckery, because they are expecting fuckery.  So maybe Tuesday isn't the day.

As for me, I've got no idea when Trump will get arrested, and only know he really ought to be. Am I excited for Trump getting arrested Tuesday because Trump says that's when they are trying it? Are you mad? If Trump names a date, what does that mean? Does he want his redneck militia surrounding Mar-A-Lago expecting a siege situation? Does he want them lining the streets in front of the courthouse?

Probably all of the above. But is any of that likely knowing what the J6 arrestees so far have experienced and what more agitators on behalf of Trump are liable to expect?  Look, I think he just said a specific day because he wants to get his Insurection.2  Pointless Civil War Boogaloo stuff on. He doesn't know the day but is tired of waiting and won't do the obvious thing of turning himself in because he hasn't acceded to how fucked he already is. 

Who's That Girl?

 

This snippet from Trump's deposition in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case is very interesting: he mistakes Caroll for Marla Maples, his second wife, in a photograph. It's pretty funny to me that he confused a woman that he  insists is "not his type" with a woman he actually married. She's a tall, slender blonde. That seems to be his type. And he also doesn't want to render his DNA. But then again, he tried to pretend he didn't know her at all. 

But the more disturbing thing in the released deposition is that he tries to maintain that she enjoyed the idea of being raped:

Trump called Carroll “sick, mentally sick”. And he mischaracterized an interview Carroll had given on CNN, falsely claiming she had talked about enjoying being sexually assaulted. “She actually indicated that she loved it. OK? She loved it until commercial break,” Trump said. “In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn’t she? She said it was very sexy to be raped. Didn’t she say that?”

Trump’s political fate may  decided – by a Georgia gran jury

Read more

Kaplan then tried to elicit from Trump that he had raped her client.

“So, sir, I just want to confirm: it’s your testimony that E Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?”

Trump answered: “Well, based on her interview with [CNN’s] Anderson Cooper, I believe that’s what took place. And we can define that … I think she said that rape was sexy – which it’s not, by the way.”

What Carroll had described is that she prefers to use the word fight, not rape because some other people “think rape is sexy”.

It doesn't escape me that rapists often tell themselves that their victims really wanted it, and that a narcissist might have a hard time understanding that if he was feeling it, that his victim wasn't also feeling the same way. And the way his response is constructed disturbs me, because it can be interpreted that he acknowledges something happened.