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Peter Frick Wright: Sometimes, there are writers who are just characters. Larger than life, seemingly incapable of writing a boring sentence, no matter what you point them at. Sometimes, years later, those writers make national headlines, turn into something just short of a household name. At least for a while. Last week, ���ϳԹ��� contributor E Jean Carroll won a defamation lawsuit against former president Trump, and with the spotlight firmly on her this week, we thought we’d take a look back at an interview she did before the trial, about her most recent ���ϳԹ��� feature. It’s the kind of interview someone in the national spotlight just doesn’t give. And the whole thing is a reminder that they just don’t make ‘em like they used to. Writers, I mean.

Paddy O’Connell has this story.

Paddy O’Connell: Have you ever had a conversation with someone…

E. Jean Carroll: How do you do? I'm an elderly unlettered woman. Nice to make your acquaintance.

Paddy: That's so interesting because it's so weird.

E. Jean: I was raised in the country, outside of hunter town, Indiana. my mother put me out the front door. And. I ran wild, like a young goat,

Paddy: But like really weird.

E. Jean: I ordered up an army of beavers. They came chopped down and said true. That's what they did.

Paddy: And it kind of ping pongs all over the place.

E. Jean: I was a cheerleader. And became Miss. Cheerleader USA, queen of all the cheerleaders in the country

Paddy: And you're just not sure what the hell is gonna happen.

E. Jean: Wait a minute, Paddy. Where, where do you live?

Paddy: I grew up in Chicago. I live in Colorado.

E. Jean: I am coming to visit you.

Paddy: And it even makes you a little worried about your job

E. Jean: Is anybody going to listen to this podcast?

Paddy: I believe they are.

E. Jean: Get the hell out of here?

Paddy: But ultimately you end up talking about something so out-there interesting that in the end, it all makes perfect sense?

E. Jean: So that was what the trip was going to towns and finding out if people ever had sex outside.

Paddy: That outspoken, direct, nowhere close to shy woman is prolific writer, E. Jean Carroll, talking about the most blush-inducing road trip of all time.

In 2018, E. Jean wrote a feature for ���ϳԹ��� magazine entitled, "Miss Jean's Wild Ride." Her assignment had her driving into small towns along the East Coast and asking folks about their al fresco sex life.

This is not an out of the ordinary job for E. Jean. For almost 50 years, she's written about love, women's rights, and relationships for Vanity Fair, Esquire, The Atlantic, and Playboy, among other publications. She's most known for her sex and romance advice column, Ask E. Jean, which ran in Elle for almost three decades and can now be found on substack.com. Her work has been described as fearless, institutionally incapable of being uninteresting, trying to shake America loose from its moorings in modesty.

And she has fought with the overly buttoned up prudery of magazine editors for her entire career. Even at a magazine near and dear to all of us.

E. Jean: Let me tell you an ���ϳԹ��� story. This was back when ���ϳԹ��� Magazine was winning the national magazine award three times in a row. I mean, ���ϳԹ��� was the tits. I did the cover story on a, a man called Bob Arnott, who was quite the thing back in the day.

He was called Dr. Sport and they put him on the cover. So they assigned me the cover story. So where's the first place I take Dr. Sport?

Paddy: Uh, gym, uh, uh, track, uh,

E. Jean: I took him to a…

Paddy: trail, trailhead.

E. Jean: I took him to a porn shoot. So that's how I opened the piece about Dr. Sports. And, John Rasmus, the famous John Rasmus, was editor in chief at the time. He said E. Jean. We are not running anything with Dr. Sport at a porn shoot!!

Paddy: How would you describe your writing style?

E. Jean: Like riding a bucking Bronco. I think that would be about it. I have no brain. I have no brain. I have no talent, and I have no skill. So that's…

Paddy: I am going to disagree with you 100%.

E. Jean: I take it from me. I have no writing talent. I am not particularly bright. But what I do have a, I'm a sliver, a little bit of an eccentric, and the only thing I've managed to do is get my eccentricities down on paper and what worked is I could solve other people's problems. Ha that's fun.

Paddy: E. Jean's career is peppered with R rated topics and the eye-widening language used to describe it. And just a note here, if your ear holes have tender sensibilities, well, buckle up. She once wrote a story for Rolling Stone that began by quoting Billy Idol using a certain dirty word

E. Jean: C dash dash dash.

Paddy: Fifteen times. Fifteen!

We have tape of her describing this and using that word as much as Billy Idol, but just as E. Jean's editor told her, my editor said, "Absolutely not, no way."

Sorry, E. Jean. I tried.

But it's these swipes of the red pen, these exclusions, that sparked an idea for a road trip that no editor could refuse.

E. Jean: I am a reader of ���ϳԹ��� magazine. I have read ���ϳԹ��� magazine for 40 years. And every single time, every time I curl up to read a story in ���ϳԹ��� magazine, whether the people were on us, you know, rafting the whitewater or climbing a peak or, you know, uh, cross-country skis.

I always wonder when the story ends, did those people have sex on the riverbank? Did they have sex on that mountain peak? Hey, did they get off their bicycles and have sex over there at the picnic table?

I want to know that and they never, never, never, never told me.

You know, does krakauer writeabout having sex on the top of Everest. No! Why not? I want to know, you know.

Paddy: Yeah. Who, has been the first or the most magnificent, sex partners on the top of the largest, tallest peak in the world?

E. Jean: Exactly! And you're telling me those people aren't taking advantage of that, just to say they did it. Of course they did, but nobody's, nobody's talking.

And so I felt deep in my heart that I had to right this wrong, this 40 years of wrongness. So I decided that I would go to towns, little towns on the east coast named Eden. And when I arrived in Eden, I would find and talk to people, and I would ask them if they ever had sex outside in the garden.

Paddy: First off, you should know that nearly every state in our blessed country has a town named Eden. And if you're wondering about the biblical reference, E. Jean said she needed character for her story and according to her, in America, you can stroll up and ask any stranger any question about anything if you frame it with the Bible.

In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve, the first humans, are cast out of paradise, the Garden of Eden, after they disobey god's laws and eat an apple, the forbidden fruit, when a snake who is actually Lucifer, the devil in disguise, tells them that apples are super tasty.

It's a wonderful sci-fi rom com when you think about it, an allegory for sex, temptation, sin, lust, bliss, all the stuff in life that'll make you smile or make your bathing suit area all sorts of abuzz.

But still, how exactly do you ask people about their sex life ... biblically?

E. Jean: I had to find a word that would not scare people. And if I said, have you banged out? Have you boffed, have you boned? I can't, I can't say that. The Bible says cleave. That's what the Lord says, cleave unto to her.

Cleaving means to cling to one another. So it's a perfect description of banging is what it is.

Paddy: Oh man, E. Jean. It takes a lot to make me blush, but it doesn't take much from you to make me blush.

E. Jean: No kidding. You're blushing?

Paddy: I've got a goggle tan in the middle of the summer right now.

Paddy: In the summer of 2017, E. Jean set out from her home in upstate New York and pointed her car south toward the Eden's of the East Coast. But it wasn't just any ole car, and she wasn't alone, and her road snacks were boderline sinful.

E. Jean: The car is a Prius. And I painted circles, big, big circles all over the car, made a smile on the back end, put a painted frogs, you know, did some frog things. The color I did, it was bright, bright blue. And so the effect is. The effect is humorous and cheerful.

I brought all the forbidden foods. I brought two wedding cakes I bought three apple pies, about five bags of unique pretzels, a huge slab of Colby. I had bottles of wine. Snickers bars. I had bags of peanuts. I just ate that stuff. Oh, my God. It was great.

Every little Eden town I came into because my car had huge blue polka dots on it. The kids would come running out of their houses and wave. And I had my dog, my beloved Lewis Carroll. He was a big standard poodle, and I had his top nut was electric blue. And I would pull into town let Lewis out, and the people were just gathered around and I'd say anybody had sex outside around here? No, no, no. Well…

Paddy: Oh, God, what a sight.

E. Jean: I was a little bit more subtle than that, but you know.

Paddy: Even if you have an adorable car and an adorable dog, how in the hell do you approach random strangers and ask them whether or not they've taken their bedroom gymnastics out by the tomato plants and the petunias? And if they oblige and talk to you, well what the hell do they actually say?

The answers to those questions after the break.

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Paddy: When intrepid sex and romance advice writer E. Jean Carroll hit the road to find out if folks had sex outside in towns named Eden along the East Coast, she did so in her polka dot Prius with her poodle and tons of snacks in the backseat. She also had an arm in a sling because, right before hitting the road, she fell off a bridge while hiking the Appalachian trail, breaking her arm in four places. Ouch. But at least her road trip had an exact and clearly defined plan.

Just kidding, she did not have a plan. Not really.

Paddy: Did you do any research about subjects prior to leaving?

E. Jean: What? What never, never accused me of doing anything. Like I was like stunned to hear you did research to talk to me. That's freaking me out. That is freaking me out.

Paddy: You did zero research for this? Really?

E. Jean: I looked to see where some Edens were, then that's it. Boy, the little towns of America are stuffed with character. They just, the people there are. Fascinating the media has completely overlooked these, these little screen door towns.

And when you arrive, they don't know enough not to talk to you. That's how innocent they are.

Paddy: To get folks to open up, E. Jean used what she describes as the trick of a seasoned reporter.

E. Jean: I'm poking around, I've got a broken arm, I've got a bag of pretzels with me. I've got a notebook, I've got recorders, I'm falling down, I've got a dog on a leash, and they run over to help me. All I had to do is just look like, oh, I'm so helpless. Oh, I can't. I get my broken arm on my pretzels. Can you hold my hair? Can you take my dog? And then pretty soon they're walking the dog for me and we're talking and we're in the middle of the conversation.

And I just walked over to them and said, this is so beautiful. This is Eden. My name is E. Jean Carol.

And then I would pull out an ���ϳԹ��� magazine and then I'd pull out an Elle magazine, both of those. And I would hand them to the people, and so then we'd just have a conversation and then I would say, how long have you been married and oh, you must've cleaved in the garden and then the giggling would start.

Then the conversation would get very, very fun and entertaining, because they were remembering wonderful things.

Paddy: And once those conversations began, boy oh boy, did E. Jean have some doozies. Her first stop was Eden Township, Pennsylvania, where she interviewed an Amish couple named John and Betty Jane.

E. Jean: They’re probably happier than most couples to tell you the truth, you know? Cause I did learn from the Amish that sex is God's gift. And sex is very much a part of their life. Very, very much a part.

Paddy: I would think they were too busy. Churning butter, raising barns and growing long, long beards. I had no idea.

E. Jean: I'm lucky I've seen them driving and driving in their carriages

Paddy: They must be exhausted.

E. Jean: Yeah.

Paddy: How do they get all that stuff done?

Paddy:  From there, E. Jean made it just 900 feet outside of Eden Township, PA, when she met Zack and Kayla.

E. Jean: This kid is wearing shorts with a scripture written all over. And this darling girl, well, she blamed the fact that they'd never made love outside on him. She was perfectly willing. And he thought that if you were a gentleman, you would never ask a lady to cleave outside. So we got that straightened up real quick.

Paddy: And then there was Crissy in Eden, Maryland, whose dog looked like Steve Bannon.

E. Jean: Oh my God, that dog was so ugly. And he snarled the whole time at Lewis Carroll, and Lewis Carroll almost ripped the window out of the Prius to get to him. It was Louis's big dream in life to send that little chump to the veterinarian.

Let me tell ya. Chrissy hated Eden. She had an adorable little trailer house with a beautiful garden. And she hated it there.

She was in love and her boyfriend lived in some big town ocean city, I think. And she couldn't wait to get out of there and move in with her boyfriend and said, oh, you've cleaved. And she said, she had, and I said, well, you've cleaved outside here. And you know what she said, she couldn't tell me because she wasn't married.

And I said, but Adam and Eve were never married. And she said, what? I said, no, the Lord never performed a marriage ceremony. And still, she wouldn't tell me if she had cleaved outside in her garden.

Paddy: But just down the street from Chrissy was a very happy and very talkative and, ahem, very satisfied farmer named Kevin Allen Smith who was out tending to his kale field, which E. Jean sampled since she had been eating nothing but cake and candy.

E. Jean: And I just flung myself on this kale. I mean, it was something green. I finally, I, you know, I had reached the limit and then of course I did the rest of the interview with my teeth completely green.

He was a man who had cleaved in his kale garden.

Paddy: Did you spit the kale out after that?

E. Jean: No, he was, he was great. He must have weighed 450 pounds. He was great.

Paddy: That’s some big cleaving right there.

E. Jean: He did some big cleaving. He did some big cleaving.

Paddy: And then on her way to Eden, North Carolina, E. Jean was pulled over in her polka dot Prius. And I know what you're thinking, but don't get your hopes up.

Paddy: Why didn't you ask the cop about cleaving?

E. Jean: I was lucky to get off of the ticket. I was afraid, you know what? I don't mess around with cops, which reminds me, I have to go pay a ticket after I get off this.

Paddy: Okay... so anyway, once E. Jean arrived in Eden, North Carolina, she met a recently heartbroken 19 year old named Tony. Well, maybe not too heartbroken.

E. Jean: Oh, he cleaved he, yeah, he cleaved hung hundreds of times down at the Portage, down at the boat boat. The, uh, you know, where you put boats in and out, he was an ambitious young man and he will go places.

Paddy: After Tony, E. Jean met Mr. Jarris Perkins & Ms. Madeline Rondon at the absolute perfect moment.

E. Jean: A man was down on his knees proposing to a woman and that was it boy. And it turned out yes, they had cleaved, but it turned out that she had been a Madam running a whorehouse and he had been a pimp and they had started this fresh life in Eden.

She was a volunteer advocate for women. And so they had these kids who were taken away from their mothers and, uh, this couple took care of, it was a charming, charming, charming moment in my life to see two people who come from that background who were making a fresh start together and doing good in the world.

Paddy: A bit later on in her trip, E. Jean rolled into Eden, Georgia, where she attended a church service and met Leslie and Beauford, high school sweethearts in their late 70s who promptly invited her to dinner. It was then that they hit her with a story so biblical it was as if it was told by Adam and Eve themselves.

E. Jean: It was like five minutes into this beautiful dinner. And they're telling me about, you know, constantly making love outside on the patio. It was just, they were just brilliant.

She told the story of Leslie, he's outside with nothing on, not a stitch on, as Beauford said, he never wears anything to go to bed and he's begging her to come out and she comes out in her little nightie and he's begging her to take it off.

And so she twitches it off and throws it away and then she backs up and then he says, don't move. She thinks it's of course, because she's so beautiful. Standing there with her foot on a step when he's telling her not to move. And what had happened is she'd backed right into, uh, a rattlesnake whose head was up and lifted and, Leslie got a shovel and killed it.

Paddy: Was it like poetic when you heard this story, you were like, are you kidding? In the garden in Eden and a snake appears, you gotta be kidding me!

It sounds like it's made up. It's perfect.

E. Jean: Oh my God. And then I asked him, well, had they gone ahead and cleaved? And she said, no. Leslie, wasn't up for it. After that he done lost the ability at that point.

Paddy: And finally, in the sweltering heat of Eden, Mississippi, E. Jean chatted with Val and Angela, a couple that fell in love in high school and had been together for 14 years.

E. Jean: They had never cleaved outside, and it struck the young man as an astonishing idea.

You know, they should send me a letter of thanks because I think that, you know, that I think marriage gets a little boring every now and then. And you know, if they run out, they had a perfect yard. I mean, it was huge. Uh, and so I think they should, uh, thank me.

I am available to solve anybody's sexual problem.

You got a problem. I will tell you to cleave outside. That's it. It's timeless. That's the thing, it's timeless. And particularly if you like the person that you're cleaving with.

Paddy: That helps.

Paddy: After Mississippi, E. Jean had everything she needed to write her story. She'd reached the end of her Edens. And even though it was, let's say uncomfortable...

E. Jean: Boy, was it hot! It was a hundred degrees. Jesus Christ.

Paddy: ...She didn't want the trip to end. Quite the contrary. As she puts it, who would want an adventure this amazing to be over?

Paddy: Were you ready for home? Were you ready for the trip to be done?

E. Jean: No, no, what the hell are we doing? Living at home? We could be out on the road. Because when I was on this road trip, I was immortal. Nobody could get to me. Nobody knew where I was. You don't have any pay any bills. You don't have to do any texting. It's great. The road life is great.

Most people go on road trips and they're like, Jesus, this is boring as hell. What the hell? What is all this driving?

I always advise people to have goals to, you know, maybe your goal will be to read every historical marker that you pass. That is hilarious. And find out if there's one historical marker, anywhere in the United States that mentions a woman, go try to find one of those.

You know, just having a goal, some places you have to get to every day. Visiting, um, Sunoco restrooms would be hilarious.

Any type of a goal like that makes it fun. Otherwise you're just driving and it can be  horrible and monotonous.

Paddy: Do you think that road trips teach us something that we can't otherwise now?

E. Jean: Well, nearly everything. Road trips teach us everything.

Paddy: Like what?

E. Jean: Well, they teach you how to be alone, a lot of people don't know how to do it. And they teach you how to enjoy yourself. it opens your eyes to new places. The minute you open your eyes to a new place, you become a new person. That's it. And you're constantly being renewed by what you see.

Like, if you read a poem, that can change you, right. A good poem can change you.. Well going past a farmhouse with, uh, horses in the yard and kids riding bareback, looking at that pausing to look at it, can change you as a human being. It just opens your eyes, uh, to maybe that picture would be contentment and satisfaction.

I am Ask E. Jean. So I, uh, do follow my own advice. So I do know how to be happy and being on a road trip is one of the main ways to be happy.

I send my readers all the time on road trips. Take a road trip! Somebody breaks up? Take a road trip. Somebody's having trouble with their parents? Take a road trip. It's just great advice.

Every day I overshot. Every day I was completely filled with joy.

I'm glad to say that people are actually having sex out of doors.

It couldn't have been better. I loved it for that.

Oh, my God. I should hit the road again

Peter Frick-Wright: E Jean Carroll is a longtime contributor to ���ϳԹ���. Her 1981 essay “Cowgirls All the Way” about the Miss Rodeo America competition was reprinted in the October 2023 issue of the magazine as an ���ϳԹ��� Classic.

Paddy O’Connell interviewed her in 2021.

This episode was written and produced by PaddyO, with editing by Mike Roberts. Music and Sound design by Robbie Carver.

The ���ϳԹ��� Podcast is made possible by our ���ϳԹ��� plus members. Learn more about all the benefits of membership and sign up at ���ϳԹ���online.com slash pod plus.