Earlier this month, A Voice for Men published a post by its founder, the reliably odious Paul Elam, with the lovely title
Bill Cosby’s victims? Or just a bunch of drug whoring star fuckers?
In it, Elam suggested that Cosby’s 46 (so far) accusers were nothing “a bunch of greedy women who commoditized their bodies like groupies” in order to get drugs from the comedian, indulging in an age-old transactional sort of sex that Elam referred to, with his customary delicacy, as “gash for stash.”
I didn’t think AVFM’s ongoing, er, coverage of Cosby could get any more ludicrous than that. Then yesterday a post by Jonathan David Farley appeared on the site with the headline:
Cosby deposition shows he loves women and women love him─and the liberal media hates it!
As it turns out, Farley spends little time meditating on Cosby’s peculiar version of “love.” The bulk of the post instead offers a highly selective “reading” of Cosby’s deposition to prove that the “liberal media” is lying about Cosby:
[A]t no point in the purported deposition transcript does Bill Cosby admit to drugging women in order to rape them. But a dying newspaper industry seeking easy clicks can hide behind the fig leaf of Fallwell v. Flynt─newspapers can basically lie about public figures with impunity─rather than present confirmed facts.
Naturally, this being AVFM, the post offers no evidence whatsoever that the “liberal media” is lying.
It’s just a teensy bit hypocritical to attack the media for allegedly not “present[ing] confirmed facts” when you present none yourself.
Farley starts off his post with this claim:
The media is breathlessly reporting that “Bill Cosby Admitted To Drugging Women In 2005 Deposition,” the implication being that he gave women drugs without their knowledge to knock them unconscious and then have relations with them.
Farley’s evidence for this assertion? He provides none.
Which makes a certain kind of sense, because that’s not what the media has reported, “breathlessly” or otherwise. Sure, a few careless headlines did in fact declare that Cosby had admitted to giving women (plural) drugs and having sex with them.
But most serious media outlets were in fact quite careful about getting the details exactly right, reporting that Cosby had admitted only to procuring drugs with the intention of giving them to women, and that he had only explicitly admitted to giving the drugs to one woman.
Here are the top ten results you get when you search Google for the phrase “Cosby admitted.”
As you can see, all but one of the headlines, from an assortment of major media outlets including the BBC and the Washington Post, report what is in the deposition exactly. The only outlet to declare, incorrectly, that Cosby had admitted to drugging women — plural — was Fox News, not exactly a bastion of the “liberal media.”
That said, it’s certainly true that plenty of people believe that Cosby actually gave women the drugs he got in order to give them to women.
Hell, even Farley’s boss at AVFM, the aforementioned Paul Elam, thinks so, writing in his post last month that Cosby had “probably” used “his fame, fortune and pharmaceuticals to grease the wheels of his sex life?”
Farley also tries to insinuate that the deposition itself is somehow unreliable.
Question the source: the document was created by one of Bill Cosby’s accusers. It makes far-from-objective statements like “[Bill Cosby’s] testimony become [sic] more and more unbelievable” (page 20).
While the document that Farley points to was prepared by a lawyer for one of Cosby’s accusers, not even Cosby’s lawyers are suggesting that the extensive excerpts from Cosby’s deposition that appear in it are distorted or fabricated. While his lawyers aren’t happy about any portion of Cosby’s deposition being made public, they don’t deny that Cosby said what he said.
Ironically, Farley himself blatantly misrepresents what’s in the deposition:
The anti-Cosby articles insist that none of the accusers are in it for the money, but the deposition reveals how false this is: The hostile lawyer asks, “Mr. Cosby, did you believe that T—— P—– would go to the press with her story when you sent her the money?”
There is zero evidence in the deposition that any women demanded money from Cosby, though there’s no question that he sent money to some.
In the deposition, Cosby admitted that he’d offered money to the plaintiff in the case. But he explicitly denied that she or her mother had demanded hush money from him — or that he’d ever claimed that. As the defense attorneys summarized what he said:
Defendant testified that even though both Plaintiff and her mother told him that all they wanted was an apology, he called Plaintiff’s home and spoke to her mother to offer money for Plaintiff’s “education.”
And here it is in Cosby’s own words. Or, rather word.
Q. So, you did not believe that [name redacted by DF] or her mother wanted money from you at the time they made the phone calls to you?
A. No.
While nothing in Cosby’s deposition proves that he’s a woman-drugging serial rapist, it certainly seems to back up a good number of the allegations made against him, and at the very least reveals him to be a sleazy adulterous creep.
But the main conclusion that Farley draws from it all is … this:
The old saying is still true: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Clearly, Farley has a much bigger problem with the facts — not to mention reality itself — than the “liberal media” he’s criticizing.
And an even more screwed-up definition of “love.”
I would make the gaslight one say “You want to be my valentine.”
Be my valentine, until we have a big public fight over who gets the money from our valentine’s day grift and split to have two different valentine’s days that each of us insists is better than the other.
@Sunnysombrera
Accurate, well the first part is at least. I was young and had zero dating experience, I failed to live up to ‘masculine’ ideals and I felt invisible. So I googled stuff until I landed on PUA. My first reaction was “huh, that makes sense!” “That explains why I haven’t had any success”. They prey on insecurities of men as you suspect. And when you learn of these “PUA gurus” their story is always the same: “I use to be a dork/nerd/geek like you, buuuuuuuut then I discovered that if you [insert whatever technique they preach] then all of a sudden look at me, I’m surrounded by [you know where this is going]” They are very inviting, they empathize with you. They assure you that it’s ok, you won’t be sexless anymore.
They don’t flat-out say that women are not people (although I’m sure some do), they are a bit more subtle than that (contrast with redpill, where all subtlety goes out the window). They just teach you that women are ‘different’ from men, that women they all have the same ‘circuitry’ so if you use this technique it will have this effect. When she shows resistance, it’s not because she not interested, it’s ‘anti-slut defense’ and here are some techniques to break that down. There’s a comfort in distilling this wild unknown of the dating world into neat little boxes and they take advantage of that (you can notice the same thing over at redpill when they scramble to rationalize things that don’t fit their sexist biotroof narrative)
They teach the whole “women are emotional beings” as a justification for why all these techiques work. “Nice guys finish last, women want an alpha” for justifications on why some of their routines seem assholish or sexist. Writing ‘field reports’ of their adventures at bars/clubs where they totally seduced this ‘HB10’ (literally reducing women to a ‘value’ of hotness) and describing which lines they used. How they displayed confidence. How they made the other guys look like sissy little betas. (Oh she has a boyfriend? Don’t worry, just run this ‘Alpha Male Other Guy’ technique to show you’re the true alpha and she will leave him for you) etc…
And oh my fucking god, the canned lines. The stock ‘phrases’, the negs, the ‘routines’ which were (as they claimed) ‘scientifically designed’ to bypass things in the brains of feeeeemales. Those things felt uncomfortable at the time, looking back on it now it’s downright cringeworthy. The absolute worst piece of advice I ever read was from “The Game” which included something called The Gunwitch method of “Make the ho say no”. This Gunwitch ‘guru’ is (presumably still) in jail for shooting a woman in the face:
http://jezebel.com/5726841/noted-pick-up-artist-allegedly-shoots-a-woman-in-the-face
Thankfully I never bothered to ‘make the ho say no’ or insult women at parties to ‘neg them’. The people who followed PUA that I knew IRL were either complete douchebags who had zero interest in being actual friends with me, or laughably convinced they were some ‘master seducer’ when all they could accomplish was make women feel uncomfortable. Anytime I wanted to used the canned lines, it always felt incredibly disingenuous, so I never bothered. It was half-way through college that I basically realized that it was all bullshit and that women are people.
I say “the first part is accurate” because when I realized PUA was bullshit, I went in the other direction (so glad I did). You’re probably still right about PUAs becoming MRAs after blaming their flirtatious failures on women, but I can’t say for sure. I ain’t a misogynist who scapegoats his problems 😛
In favor here, though I get a ton of such ‘valentines’ from non-MRA individuals. It’s not a ‘normal’ day without at least one “MRA Valentine” turning up in my inbox.
God that picture of Roosh is terrifying.
@Paradoxical
It is. Look at those lifeless shark eyes. ????
@Moocow
Oh I know they never directly say “women aren’t people”, but with the constant encouragement to disregard what their targets want or don’t want it’s certainly heavily implied, don’t you think?
Sorry, I know I’m nitpicking. Ignore this post if you wish.
Moocow, that’s an excellent synopsis of the PUA / redpillian world.
What was (still is) especially “revelatory” to me was (is) that so many of these guys are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. Arrested development has never looked so grim.
I’m enjoying the MRA Valentines, it’s a fun game!
@Aunt Edna
Oh God don’t get me started on men in their 50s/60s hitting on twenty year old women. I find it to be one of the most repulsive things on this earth. Yes I’ve been a recipient several times of unwanted attention from old men. Just ew. All the ewwwwwws on earth, forever and ever amen.
Back to MRA Valentines:
“Feminism has turned Western women into spoiled entitled brats, but you’re Asian. Wanna date?”
I DID NOT NEED TO SEE THAT PICTURE HISTORY NERD.
NO ONE NEEDS TO SEE THAT.
@sunnysombrera: I’m sorry that happened to you. It shows there’s still a culture of older men who feel like they “deserve” younger women. Like in the expression “trophy wife.” It’s stupid and demeaning.
On the other side, I also think that some of the “dirty old man” trope is ageism, but when MRAs treat older women as disgusting or invisible, I’m prone to… I guess the word is schadenfreude? You know, “now you’re getting a taste of your own medicine” sort of thing.
@History Nerd
I guess what I’m saying is I don’t think he rationalised his behaviour by telling himself he was just being naughty with women who “said yes” by getting into compromising situations with him.* That narrative doesn’t match up with someone who is deliberately compromising the situations without the women’s involvement or complicity** (drugging women who are eating dinner in a public restaurant; attacking another in a dressing room where she’d have expected professionalism and privacy, telling women they’d be attending a party with his wife and family in attendance so they’d feel safe in coming over and so on). This behaviour would have to be consciously predatory. If any rationalisation was going on it could have been of the nature that a) he was entitled to whatever he could manage to get over (i.e. a grifter’s morality); b) what they don’t know (because I’ve drugged them into unconsciousness) won’t hurt them; c) all women are just asking for it and only say ‘no’ to protect their repuations or sensibilities so I’m doing them a favour; or…
*though this does seem to be the rationalisation of some other rapists
*”complicity” here is used in the mode of a rationising rapist asshole. Obviously, I don’t think these women were complicit in anything.
Any word on the fabulous premiere of The Sarkeesian Effect yet?
It has to be beating Jurassic World at box office, right?
OMG I forgot today is supposed to be the release date! Raaawwwrrrrrr
@dhag85
It’s not your fault you forgot something that only happens once in a blue moon.
http://cdn.meme.am/instances2/500x/1121739.jpg
…I know I’m a week behind the times, but what happened to the Mammoth? What’s with the nebula? What is going on here?
@contrapangloss
The nebula is an accident. 🙂 It’s some sort of WordPress default until the normal banner starts working again.
Wait, I thought these MRA-type men were anti-Black racists. Why are they defending Cosby? I would have thought they would have twisted his rapes to justify their claim that Black men are all about the rape. They’re strangely inconsistent.
http://cdn.meme.am/instances2/500x/1121858.jpg
@pkayden I suspect they defend Cosby because he’s “one of the good one’s” telling black teens to pull their pants up and stop wearing their hats backwords. Could also be that their hatred of women is overriding their racist tendencies.
Ever read Mother Night? There are three aging hatemongers in it, all different stripes of fascist. They hate each other’s racial backgrounds, so by rights they should all despise one another, but they band together…because HATE. Hate is their bond, funnily enough.
“their hatred of women is overriding their racist tendencies”
Bingo.