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.
@Tilikum
Ignoring for a moment that you walked in here spouting Manuresphere terminology (come on, dude, no one besides redpillians and other grains-for-brains talk about “high status males” unironically), I’m going to have to ask you to clarify your comment, because it sounds to me that you’re insinuating that the rapes Cosby committed were consensual and that the women are only coming forward because they found out they weren’t exclusive with him – kinda rich, considering Cosby himself expressed concern that the women he raped might “fall in love” with him. Yuck.
Or possibly you’re blaming the women for going for said “high status male” and getting raped, thus making them deserving of it. Either way, you’re a hateful misogynist and a despicable shitstain, just the kind of person the post title is aimed at. If I’m interpreting your comment wrong, please rephrase. Though I’m pretty sure I’m not.
@Tilikum, maybe I’m hard of reading, but it seems to me like you’re saying these women were, each of them, okay with what Cosby did to them until they found out that he’d done it to other women. That the only reason they’ve come forward is jealousy.
Are you sure you want to be saying that?
Whoops, ninja’d by anarchonist.
@maghaven:
I’m in tears!
@gosuamakenatek:
Or even why is this happening to him now, and not thirty years ago when he was big?
All these women have missed out on that sweet, sweet Pudding Pop money.
Meant to post this in the last Cosby thread, but I think it is more than appropriate given Cosby’s hatred for good music.
https://youtu.be/fyMAsedWzCk
In Illinois, the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases is until the victim is 38. After that point I’m not sure it would be possible to prosecute the case effectively which I assume is why there’s a statute of limitations at all.
We get some things right.
@Falconer & anarchonist
Wow. I read Tilikum as saying that powerful men can exploit their “untouchable” status to prey on women who are unaware that they aren’t the only one he’s assaulted. The isolation of victims works to the predator’s advantage, but once it’s no longer a secret, everyone can see that it’s part of a pattern and the abuser finds it more difficult dismiss single accusations by claiming “that bitch is crazy/jealous/vengeful/a gold digger/etc.”
As someone pointed out earlier, this is not something happening to lots and lots of high profile men. This points to the veracity of victims account when a high profile man IS accused by many victims. There is nearly always corroborating evidence too. I don’t know about with Cosby, but with Savile lots of people knew about what was happening, and Savile was devious and clever enough to cover his arse effectively so that none of it went further (emboldened by a rape culture that turned a blind eye in many instances).
And sadly, even if they had reported to police their suspicions the chances are high that nothing would have been done, which I suspect would have been the same with Cosby, and other rich powerful men who have been habitual rapists/ abusers.
@ Ellesar
Ironically, Like Cosby, Savile had been called out by a comedian years before as well (Jerry Sadowitz).
@Ibis
“Wow. I read Tilikum as saying that powerful men can exploit their “untouchable” status to prey on women who are unaware that they aren’t the only one he’s assaulted. The isolation of victims works to the predator’s advantage, but once it’s no longer a secret, everyone can see that it’s part of a pattern and the abuser finds it more difficult dismiss single accusations by claiming “that bitch is crazy/jealous/vengeful/a gold digger/etc.””
This is what I read Tilikum as saying too.
This is also why I rarely comment these days except to share links to information: there is not enough time in the day to return repeatedly to re-re-re clarify a thoughtful, supportive comment that is taken to be hostile for no discernible reason.
Namaste.
I gave the comment the benefit of the doubt at first but he’s in the other thread trolling right now. Anarchronist and Falconer read it correctly. They weren’t being overly hostile.
Oh, and SFHC just discovered via Google search that he’s a racist and a misogynist who posts at Chateau Heartiste.
Turns out the people who have been posting here for years know a manospherian troll when they see one and we’re not just meanie pants who like to abuse innocent new posters.
I’d like to point out that the new comment policy doesn’t say we have to be nice to misogynists and trolls. Nor does this count as a pile on when there were two criticisms, one of which ninja’d the other.
As long as the comment policy isn’t being violated, we really need to stop with the “you’re soooooo mean!!!!” type posts. If you think someone has been abusive or is piling on, contact David. If not, engage with the post you disagreed on its content instead of trying to guilt trip people.
@BVH
You going to apologise to Falconer and Anarchonist now?
@Tikkum
High status males get away with this shit constantly. It usually rears its ugly head for them once women realize that it’s not a secret between her and Mr. Famous, but she was part of a pattern.
All the rationalizations disappear once you realize you were tricked, made a fool of, and who likes to feel like a fool?
Then the dam breaks right over dudes head.
Translation: Rich, powerful men sometimes rape women. They expect that their wealth and power will immunize them from prosecution. All too often, this strategy works. But if one women (in this case, Andrea Costand) speaks up, then another (in this case, Barbara Bowman) might find the courage to do the same.
From the Daily Mail, October 2014:
“In 2004, when another rape victim Andrea Constand went public with her plight by filing a lawsuit against Cosby, Barbara said she made it her ‘mission’ to support her.
‘I believed her because the details of her assaults were eerily similar to mine. I knew she was telling the truth and needed someone to support her because no one else was.'”
Many of the stories had agents putting these young women in Cosby’s sphere of influence. That makes me wonder if any of them knew what was going on. Also, some of his friends were certainly complicit according to a few of the reports.
The scary thing about Jimmy Savile was that it was an “open secret” in the BBC that he was molesting and raping children. Or, at the very least, people knew he was a sleaze who had sexual interests in underage girls but didn’t do anything because they thought rape and molestation were rare.
People probably knew what Cosby was doing but didn’t think it was rape. But it clearly was, even by the bullshit legal standards in the 1960’s through 1980’s.
Yeah, I don’t think it would matter if Cosby was prosecuted and got like 20 years of prison time, there would still be people defending Cosby until their last breath.
I’m not sure how anyone read Tilikum and thought he wasn’t spouting off PUA-type bullshit . . . “high status male”, it’s usually a dead give-away.
Sanitybroke: If Cosby got jail time that would just be proof that women are conspiring to ruin men’s lives.
Actually, Trollicus, it’s more a case of no “rationalizations”. They knew what was up when he urged them to take drinks they didn’t want, and got angry if they demurred, promising to ruin their careers. So they took the drinks, unwillingly, but Then the drugs kicked in and they couldn’t fight him off, even though he was hurting them. No “rationalizations” necessary.
And a lot of them having been fighting for years to be heard. It’s not a case of realizing they were “tricked” or “made fools of”. It’s a case of being RAPED, then silenced for years by a noxious old fart with a lot of money, the best lawyers that money could buy, and a rape culture that tells women they won’t be believed no matter how credible and consistent their declarations. And where their professional reputations would suffer BECAUSE they were victims of a crime, while his continued to thrive even though he was a fucking pervert. Until enough others came forward, AND another man called him out during a comedic monologue.
“Who likes to feel like a fool”, indeed. Maybe you’d like to tell us now that you’ve been unmasked for a fool yourself, eh?
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve been around this shit a long time too and I didn’t immediately read Tikilum as definitely a manure-spherian. I read it as ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. I don’t think BVH and Ibis’s reading is unreasonable but, given the kind of trolls this blog attracts on a regular basis, I think it’d be rather unjustifiably optimistic not to ask for clarification, which is exactly what people did.
Which makes this quoted comment kind of piss me off because people were asking for clarification. Both people who responded said “here’s what it reads like to me, is that what you actually meant?” And still that’s not good enough for the ‘oh em gee so meeeannnnn’ crowd. But hey, someone who rarely comments here couldn’t discern a reason for suspicion so I guess there can’t have been one, can there? Blargh.
Alan Robertshaw
I can’t help but to feel that the Death of Certain Big Political Person kind of burst the dam when it came to Saville and what he had been up to. Also, there’s that other paedo-scandal going on right now, which also feels like aftershocks of passing of She Who Must Not Be Named. (Mind, I don’t subscribe to that re-heating of Satanic Panic that has been pushed around, because child sexual abuse is common enough to actually happen without fanciful stories of SRA.)
@ skiriki
Yeah. I doubt very much that the particular late (not very) lamented person was directly involved, but her attitude may have facilitated a certain nonchalance.
It was well known that MT had no interest in people’s personal lives. In some ways that was a good thing. She didn’t give two hoots about people’s sexuality, and she made it clear that she didn’t want to hear any ‘tittle tattle’ (as she put it) about what people got up to in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
That of course may have led to a culture where people in the know would have felt safe not to pass on the rumours about Savile and as you rightly point out it was around the time when one major panic about suspected child abuse had turned out to be an unwarranted disaster. Politically there probably was a disinclination to be associated with what might have seen to be another witch hunt amongst her advisors as well.
As to the Westminster thing, I remember at the time there had been all sorts of rumours about certain people. There was so much abuse being hurled though generally that it would be easy to dismiss such allegations as yet more slurs. When child abuse allegations are wrapped up with ‘blood libel’ innuendo they do lose a lot of credibility.
Hmm, come to think of it, I do somewhere have a copy of a magazine that was withdrawn because it featured a rather lurid cover and story about Michael Portillo and Peter Lilley; I’ll have to dig that out sometime.