A man who has been imprisoned for 18 years has been released after"victim" recants her allegations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/20/jerry-lee-brock-released-recantation-_n_6195966.html
Ths of course tells us nothing about the allegations against Cosby himself, but it does highlight the fact than wrongful accusations do occur.
Yeah, well in the case of Cosby there are something like 16 victims now. I mean seriously. There’s little doubt of his guilt. Actually, there’s zero doubt of his guilt. Those who are defending him need to seriously take a long breath and come to the realization that he’s guilty.
That’s all I have to say.
Those are alleged actions made by women decades later. Completely unsubstantiated by any witnesses or evidence.
I feel strongly that rape should be prosecuted. It should be reported ASAP and that gives both parties a opportunity to have a fair and unbiased investigation. Lawyers can represent both sides and if needed a trial will decide the matter.
The 1980’s is not exactly the stone age. Rape prosecutions were on the up swing and in the news. I vividly remember my bosses holding workshops on workplace sexual harassment and the procedures to report it. If Cosby was drugging and raping people then any alleged crimes that occurred then should have been reported and dealt with.
Was there a scene in which Cliff explained to Theo how not to grope women without consent or how not to get them drunk or high and rape them when they were unconscious?
If not, no, that’s not the kind of program that would be suitable.
Sorry - but I consider inappropriate touching and trying to kiss someone against their will as part of the pattern that would be expected from some accused of drugging and raping women.
So - the stories of women who weren’t actually raped should be ignored - cause he didn’t actually rape them?
This seems to me to be like ignoring stories of an accused school shooter that showed up to school with a gun, but didn’t actually shoot anyone.
The ones that are old stories should be ignored cause they are old, women who have any type of issue - such as the woman who was disbarred or somehow otherwise punished by her state bar association - well she has no credibility, women who are new might be doing it to try and get money, women who go on TV are either seeking fame or trying to get money for appearances.
With this type of thinking - we’d never be able to say anyone ever was guilty of anything - unless they were brought to court.
Bill Cosby is obviously not the man he pretended to be. That is not a crime. He should not spend one day in jail - nor pay one dollar in fines unless given a fair trial and afforded all the protections guaranteed by the constitution.
But all of us who think he is guilty without a trial - are more than welcome to do so. People make decisions is everyday life all the time - based on stuff that might not be accepted in court (and testimony WOULD be accepted). People break up with people based on hearsay and stories and patterns of behavior.
I think Cosby did at least some of what he accused of. Is it possible I am wrong? Sure. Do I think I am? No.
Cosby is also allowed to sue newspapers and TV stations if he believes they libeled or slandered him. Obviously he won’t (or to me it is obvious) - as he would then be subject to being deposed and won’t go ahead and be forced to answer questions.
Plenty of people are considered to have been factually guilty of committing crimes - even though they never had their day in court - or even in some cases where they were acquitted. No one is saying they legally are guilty of anything.
But they weren’t reported back then, apparently. It doesn’t invalidate the crimes, if they all happened. I’m not saying they all happened as reported / claimed, but with so many allegations, I have to conclude in this situation, that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
This comic is extremely relevant:
http://www.jimchines.com/2013/08/sexual-harassment-conversations-in-comic-form/
As is this old thread about women being groped and why we don’t report it:
Bill Cosby’s life being ruined? Ha-fucking-ha. Look at all the defenders in this thread. I wonder if the same men who are defending him would allow their daughters anywhere near him.
His life is not ruined if I realize what a skeevy man he is. Whether he is a rapist or not, there is too much smoke for me to shrug and say, oh, all them bitches be lyin’. I’ve been groped and harassed and touched and never reported it.
But, I highly recommend you all look at that comic and then take a real look at your behavior, and then ask yourselves why a woman wouldn’t report real sexual harassment, in the face of all of this.
Anyway, I just popped in here to thank people that have been supporting me, particularly NotCarlson, faithfool, Bullitt, and others. Thanks guys, for fighting the good fight.
I didn’t say they should be ignored. That’s what you extrapolated from what I said. What I said was that Cosby hasn’t been accused of rape by anywhere near 16 women, which is what many of the posters to these threads keep harping on. Yet you and others who appear to share your mindset apparently think it’s just fine to consider everyone who’s come forward a rape victim whether that’s what they’ve alleged or not.
Frankly I don’t consider either of the two offenses you mentioned to be all that heinous on their own merits. You would be correct in that they are indicative of a pattern of coming on to women (and a pattern that seems to have been largely successful in his role as a womanizer) but they shouldn’t carry any more weight than that.
The media and many of the Cosby-as-rapist-no-doubt-about-it crowd have been trumpeting them (and certain other obviously consensual encounters) as rape, attempted rape, etc., when in fact they are no such thing. And it’s the fact that so much lying, exaggeration, and equivocation have been swirling all around this issue on the part of both the media and certain of Cosby’s alleged victims that leads me to question the veracity and possible motives of the rest.
You can have all the feelings you want, but that’s simply not the reality we live in.
There are lots of reasons why a rape or sexual assault victim might choose not to report a crime. What’s crazy is that these points have to be made repeatedly, but they include:
Police frequently don’t take rape charges seriously.
Rape kits are often tossed without processing, and in the majority of rape cases, a rape kit won’t offer anything.
The entire process of reporting and prosecuting a tape claim is as if more traumatic than the rape itself and does not guarantee a conviction a conviction doesn’t guarantee a substantial punishment.
A woman making a rape charge is often required to open her entire life to public scrutiny, making her the target of exactly the kinds of pillorying that is seen on these boards.
A woman making a rape charge—even if there is a conviction—often finds her entire identity recast as a rape victim, perhaps for the rest of her life.
This can affect everything, her current and future relationships, career prospects, whatever.
If the rapist was someone on her social circle or family—which is the case in the majority of rape cases—her whole social group becomes split over her claim, many taking sides against her or blaming her.
If the rapist is rich, powerful, or famous, the rapist can bury her in public relations and litigation and ruin her reputation and life.
No matter what happens, some significant number of people will adjudge her a slut, a gold-digger, a publicity hound, a man-hater, a trouble-maker, etc., etc., etc.
This is all a part of our history and present as a species with a largely male-dominant and mysogynistic society. If the race victim is a woman, she faces not only all the above, but starts out at a disadvantage simply for being a woman. There are still societies existing today in which any woman who is a victim of rape is considered a stain on her family’s honor and must be killed, sometimes by her own father or mother or brother. That doesn’t happen in America today, so far as we know, but it’s just another aspect of the whole cloud of pain that surrounds a woman reporting rape.
I’m sure there are people on this board who could add a lot more, but what is unfortunate is that these things still have to be said.
Faced with all this, no reasonable person can blame a sale victim from keeping quiet, at least until some point on her life when she is in a more secure position, or no longer has as much to lose.
Hell, we are still in a Stone Age when it comes to rape. It might be somewhat better than it was before, but even now, A woman having suffered from rape has lost once. Filing charges of rape brings with it a significant likelihood of her becoming a two-time loser.
It should be noted that many or most of these reasons apply to people who are victims of any crime, not just rape.
If my daughter were still of an age where I were able to allow her to do things, I’d allow her near Bill Cosby long before I’d allow her near Bill Clinton.
Assuming a relationship were to develop, with Cosby at least she’d get encouragement to earn good grades and perhaps a financial bonus for doing so. She might get her college education paid for and she might even get significant financial help even twenty years on should she find herself in dire financial straights despite the fact she hadn’t seen him in years and years.
Bill Clinton on the other hand would use her solely for his own gratification, treat her as a “bimbo eruption” if she went public, strenuously lie about everything that happened and then do everything in his power to ruin her character and reputation.
Add to what I said above: very few of these things are legal problems that have legal solutions. They are societal problems. Until society start treating women differently and people who allege they have been raped differently, you cannot blame rape victims for hesitating to report.
A recent Rolling Stone article talks about rape at the University of Virginia, making the point again that the whole system is geared toward hushing up tape allegations.
Additionally:
The entire culture of a significant subculture at U.Va., specifically the fraternities of the children of the wealthy, is a pro-rape culture, with the glorification of rape and sexual assault in the college fight song (now band at official events but still popular) and a tradition of slipping strong drinks (“special punch”) to recently arrived freshman woman—a significant proportion of campus assaults happen during the first few weeks of the school year.
The frat area—Rugby Row—is known to some as rapists row. Almost every female student can point to one or another frat house where they or an acquaintance has been assaulted.
It’s no coincidence that underage alcohol use, and heavy alcohol use generally is intimately tied up with sexual assaults at colleges. Of course, I have been recently called a neo-Prohibitionist or some such on these very boards for saying that we as a society need to decrease the importance of alcohol on our society, particularly in college life.
It’s not like Bill Clinton cancels out Bill Cosby.
If you were contemplating what to allow your daughter to do, you would have to evaluate Cosby on his own merits, without reference to how he compares to Clinton.
Isn’t that great, though? Let’s view everyone through the lens of Bill Clinton. Ridiculous. I have no clue what he has to do with anything.
Yeah, that probably did seem kind of random. Clinton’s been brought up in the Pit thread on Cosby and it looks like I posted to the wrong thread.
Point still stands though.
Clinton was relevant to the Pit thread because it wasn’t so much about Cosby himself but about the attitudes of people who would defend him. This thread is about Cosby himself, as was the specific question you were being asked.
In that case, no, I wouldn’t want my daughter to be alone with Cosby. But not out of fear that she’d be raped but because he’s apparently a world class womanizer.
The more that comes out, the more convinced I am that Cosby has done something wildly inappropriate with these women. People in power often abuse their positions to take advantage of younger, attractive people. It’s as old as time.
What doesn’t jive with me is that many of the women kept coming back for more. IOW, they didn’t seem all that traumatized by it. These aren’t children who have no recourse. These are adult women who say that they felt violated, but then continued to associate with Cosby, continued to be work for him, continued to be carry on flirtations and affairs with him, and in many cases, returned years later to ask him for money. THAT’s troubling to me. (More than one woman reported that Cosby paid them money and asked them to use the money to further their education. Very odd behavior for a rapist.)
Acc to Cosby’s camp, Janice Dickenson wrote a book, which was not screened by Cosby’s camp. In the book she mentions Cosby, and says that she made a play for him, and he brushed her off. That’s hardly an account of someone who is later claiming to have been raped by him. Quite the contrary. I have not read her book, nor will I because I think she’d fuck a doorknob if it got her some attention, but assuming the lawyers are telling the truth about her book, then that’s pretty damning against her claim of rape. Because it appears she’s fine dropping his name when it suited her purpose, only to turn her story around years later in an attempt to sully his name.
To me, this entire scenario is sounding an awful lot like “casting couches.” A man in power is using his clout to get sexual favors. Does the fact that many women (and men, I suppose) voluntarily cooperated, in order to land a job, excuse the executive’s behavior? Absolutely not. But if they cooperate, take the job, and then take the next one, and the next one, it’s hard to know where “prostitution” ends and “victimization” begins.
They indicate a pattern of utilizing force to get sexual gratification.
The media (and others) have been “trumpeting” them as sexual assault, which is an accurate description.
You truly are a world-class defender of powerful men with family-friendly public images who have been accused of heinous actions.