Anyone who, at this late date, is still defending Bill Cosby needs to take a long hard look at the portraits of 35 of Cosby’s 46 accusers in the latest issue of New York magazine.
Look these women in the face, and tell me they’re lying. Read their accounts, and tell me they’re lying. Watch the videos in which six of these women tell their stories to the cameras, and tell me they’re lying. Each and every one of them.
This is Lili Bernard. Is she lying?
Go watch her video and tell me that.
This is Victoria Valentino. Is she lying?
Go watch her video and tell me that.
This is Louisa Moritz. Is she lying?
Go watch her video and tell me that.
I believe all of these women. Their stories are all too believable, and all chillingly similar. Not identical, as if they’re reading off a script, but similar, in that they all describe a practiced predator with a standard MO.
But, Cosby defenders, you don’t have to believe all of them. If only one of them is telling the truth, Cosby is a lying, sleazy, predatory rapist.
Can you honestly tell me you think each and every one of these women are lying?
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Please read the newly revised COMMENTS POLICY before commenting. Rape apologists will be banned. If you feel compelled to tell me you think all these women are lying, send me an email.
Kind of thinking about it from the angle “do not let any rumors go around that might shake her and our party’s standing”, and later “that would damage her and our party’s legacy”; I mean, it doesn’t take direct, personal investment, as we’ve seen in cases of hiding abuse. Since IIRC wasn’t there connections to Savile on both political and personal level, along the lines of “shows up at our parties or some posh happenings”?
It is true that the attitude certainly helps in keeping this stuff being stuffed into closet and hoping it is forgotten, but thankfully, that doesn’t seem to work too nicely these days.
Yup. At the time is public profile was “Wow, what a guy. Multi-millionaire yet volunteers to work for free in kids’ hospitals”. If you were plugging the ‘compassionate conservative’ line then a few photos with him was good publicity.
There were lots of rumours flying around at the time, but they were so outlandish (e.g. the necrophilia) that they were hard to believe (although bearing in mind his Norman Bates style relationship with his mother I didn’t find that too implausible). It’s easy to see how people not directly connected with him just them off.
I really appreciate these brave women for what they are doing. They know that they won’t get any real justice, but they are helping to turn the discussion. Maybe the next “powerful” man who starts this shit will get thrown in prison where he belongs, long before raping nearly 50 people. Young women need to know that they will be supported and believed, so that at least that is one tool the rapist can’t use against them. Anyway it’s a good step in the right direction and all the hugs to these women for their strength and courage.
Thanks for the support, guys. Since I do have the time to return repeatedly to re-re-re-clarify my position, prepare for a teal deer.
@bvh
For what it’s worth, I didn’t jump on Tilikum. Neither did Falconer. I actually re-read Tilikum’s comment multiple times, trying to see if I was interpreting it wrong. I went away from my computer for a while, waiting to see if someone else would spot what I did, but in the end, I felt I had to address it. And naturally, I ninja’d Falconer, who put it much better than I did.
As WWTH quite correctly noted, there was no pile-on either, since ninja. If you think I was being unreasonable with my “hateful misogynist and a despicable shitstain” accusation (at that point, I was already quite certain that I had not misread Tilikum’s meaning), then say so. I will tone down my language if people think I’m being too much of a cursing poopyhead, but please don’t imply that all regulars here are terrible meaniepants.
Still, I am sorry if I have in any way contributed to creating a hostile environment that discourages people from commenting. I will try to do better.
Other than that, I couldn’t disagree with your assertion more. “No discernible reason?” Really, now? Okay, I’ll play. Let’s break down Tilikum’s comment to see why it raised so many red flags in my head.
As cupisnique typed earlier, it’s a dead giveaway. Nobody outside the douchebags in the manosphere uses that phrase in a serious conversation. It goes hand-in-hand with the belief that women, as a group, are gold-diggers who only care about a man’s socio-economical status, and will leave any man for a higher-status male. There is no real-world applicability for that phrase, and the chance of misinterpreting it is very low. Red flag level: FUCKIN’ HUGE.
We’re off to a bad start.
I just can’t interpret the use of “Mr. Famous” as anything but a bitter, condescending insult aimed at women who, true to the “gold-digger theory” discussed above, are not looking for “Mr. Right” (a common romcom trope), but “Mr. Money” or “Mr. Famous” or whatever unholy abomination results from Mr. X marrying a misogynist dictionary. Red flag level: Gosh-darn big.
I understand that the “secret between X and Y” could be interpreted as the all-too-common phrase uttered by sexual abusers to their victims, but in the light of everything else, it only serves to make the comment look worse, and even more in line with manospherian myths (women being secretive about their sexual activity because SMV or some horseshit). Red flag level: Moderate.
This is the part where I’d like to ask the people who wanted to give Tilikum the benefit of the doubt, without any snark whatsoever, how this comment could be interpreted in a positive light. No, really, I would love to know why the second paragraph does not strike someone in the face like a tidal wave of jumping, waving red flags.
Even if Tilikum had really, truly just been phrasing the whole first paragraph in an unfortunate way, there is still the itty-bitty problem that he thinks that “feeling a fool” is the reason these women are coming forward, and he never, ever, considers that the actual issue with being raped might be, you know, BEING FUCKIN’ RAPED! This fits right into the manospherian myth that rape is at most an inconvenience for women, and that getting accused of rape is way worse. Since according to these myths, women, as a group, are a vindictive, jealous bunch of gold-diggers, they will go around falsely accusing innocent men of rape to get that “sweet, sweet rape money” (seriously, WTF is wrong with you, manospherians?). Hopefully, I dont have to remind anyone that these beliefs are not only false, but absolutely horrendous to boot. Red flag level: CRITICAL.
Individually, each one of these points would perhaps only raise an eyebrow or two, but put together, they’re showing a distinct pattern in the mindset of the commenter known as Tilikum. So no, I am going to disagree with you on the “thoughtful, supportive comment” part. There is nothing thoughtful or supportive here, nor in anything else this leaking douchebag of scented diarrhea has achieved during his miserable, hopefully short-lived stay on this site.
I was worried I went a little overboard with my insults, but after reading Tilikum’s bullshit on the other thread, my only regret is that I will forever be unable to reach SFHC’s level of glorious cursing. *Sigh*
I saw this post by Valerie Dorazio yesterday, and only just now thought of linking to it here.
Long story short, she got pressured by a Big Name to have sex with him, and when she didn’t go but instead told her boss, Big Name tried to have her fired. She wasn’t, but she feels lucky about it.
How much pressure were these women under to have a drink with Cosby? I can’t begin to imagine it. How many others turned him down and found out that Hell hath no petty grudges like Bill Huxtable scorned?
@WWTH, SFHC, sevenofmine: Thank you all for your support. I really was trying to be gentle, but I guess I need to work on it.
And thank you, Anarchonist, for all the work on your last comment.
Another way of saying thank you:
https://vine.co/v/Mqlxu9KmwMI
For what little it’s worth, I initially read Tilikum’s comment as “Powerful men use their influence to get away with this kind of thing for longer than they might otherwise, but once their victims come together it becomes impossible to contain.”
Seeing their posts in the other thread made it pretty clear that regardless of what they meant in that particular post, they still weren’t here in good faith.
@Falconer
Aww, thanks yourself! Really, I was attempting to formulate a possible method for identifying the various parts of what constitutes what we commonly call a…
*sees video*
OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT? NOTHING THIS CUTE CAN POSSIBLY EXIST! IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE! THE CUTE DEFIES ALL LOGIC! DOES NOT COMPUTE! ERROR ERROR ERROR
*stares at the video until passes out from the cute*
Did somebody say (well, post) pomeranians?
http://40.media.tumblr.com/71c75b56bf90401d520b83f8b3463b17/tumblr_n6kghvndNs1qza514o7_1280.jpg
@Falconer,
That’s an excellent point that you make. I also think that Bill Cosby at the time had such a wholesome image of a happily married family man that when he offered to discuss their acting careers and give them advice, they probably didn’t think that he meant anything else. Then you take into account that the drinks that he gave lot of them were tea or cappuccinos (fairly friendly-sounding beverages). Overall, it’s pretty obvious why they went to his room. They’d had it drummed into their heads that networking was a good idea and would or break their careers and they shouldn’t offend a man like Bill Cosby if they wanted to make it in the industry. Add to that that a lot of them probably didn’t expect him to come onto them, let alone do what he actually did, which was drug them and rape them.
You guys like kittehs. This is my friend’s new one. I think she looks like one of those little soot monsters you get in ‘Spirited Away’.
http://s1122.photobucket.com/user/Alan_Robertshaw/media/11731961_10206049213562370_1769882583293361123_o_zpsgjcjupjp.jpg.html?filters%5Buser%5D=142504534&filters%5Brecent%5D=1&sort=1&o=0
@SFHC That looks like a baby seal! Almost makes me want to get a pomeranian . . .
@alaisvex: Somehow I missed that he used tea and cappucino. I thought it was alcohol. God, is he a creep.
@Alan: I have a Gravatar that’s basically a little kitty soot sprite. Maybe I’ll put it on when I get bored with my (actual!) fedora.
From Beverly Johnson’s story about being drugged by Cosby (link to Vanity Fair article from last December) he drugged her cappuccino, and she only got away because she’d already done enough drugs to recognize the effects within a couple of sips, and started yelling at him and cursing him over it. Cosby pretty much dragged her down the stairs and out the door, hailed a cab, then threw her into it and stormed off.
One of the interesting bits in that Vanity Fair article is that when Johnson called back the private number Cosby had given her that night before giving her the drugged cappuccino… she got his wife instead, because he’d given her the home number.
From the article:
So one wonders whether Mrs. Cosby might have already had some suspicions.
I’m not sure what the exact laws on rape and sexual assault were in California and New York when most of the assaults occurred. It might’ve been necessary to prove that either Cosby drugged people without their consent or they were completely unconscious or physically resisted his advances (otherwise, at the time, he could be found guilty of a less serious misdemeanor or felony than rape in some states).
That’s an uphill battle, but hopefully the vast number of accusers and consistency of their stories can convince a jury that there’s a preponderance of the evidence that he drugged people without their knowledge. Also, it looks like he won’t be able to take the Fifth in a civil case because the criminal statutes of limitations all expired.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/29/bbc-savile-expose-newsnight-meirion-jones
High status males get away with this, low status males get away with this, men in general get away with this. Why would I, personally, want to have myself put on trial? The women who come forward are enormously brave. They know they will be, their every relationship, everything they’ve ever done will be looked over with a fine toothed comb long before anyone even really checks into the dude. And his background check will be “he had a girlfriend once who totally says he wouldn’t do this!”
Jenora Feuer,
I wonder. I mean, I would imagine that his wife must have suspect him of infidelity. But would she have had any reason to suspect he was a rapist before the accusations came out?
Well, I just remembered that the deposition in question is from a pretty old case. So she’s know for a while, anyway.