in a cnn interview with anderson cooper, she explained her decision not to call her assault a "rape", stating that due to the prevalence of women being subject to longstanding sexual violence, she did not want to label this single incident of "three minutes in this little dressing room" as rape. instead, she described it as a "fight" because then she would not be considered as the "victim". reflecting, she criticized her own thinking at the time that "i thought i won because i got out" as "stupid". further believing that "most people think of rape as being sexy" with rape "fantasies", carroll declared: "i was not thrown on the ground and ravished ... this was not sexual. it just, it hurt."