Why is it still so hard for us to use the word “rape”?

On May 9, a jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual battery against the journalist E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial, ordering the former president to pay her $5 million. They did not, however, find Trump liable for rape. The murky, vexed distinction the jury made in that verdict speaks to what has been one of the central conflicts since Carroll came forward in 2019 — and to America’s persistent cultural queasiness when it comes to talking about rape.

When Carroll first accused Trump of attacking her in her 2019 memoir, What...