I’d like to agree with you, and say it’s just a tiny minority of people. and you’re probably right. But the degree to which it has come out of late that (many) men think they have the right to women’s bodies and women’s autonomy is frankly, depressing.
Catcalling is just awesome and women should appreciate it.
Women are often at least partially responsible for their own rapes.
Women are always making false rape claims.
Women are quick to play the rape card.
If I didn’t have such a wonderful, gentlemanly, kind, loving man at home, who really is the epitome of the “good guy” I might be even more jaded and cynical than I am.
But, no, I don’t intend to go and fight all the good fights of the world. I’m just gonna go home and play Wasteland 2 until my eyes bleed.
My social world is probably smaller than yours, plus I work with all women.
It’s old school RPG and it is lots of fun. I was really really hesitant and dubious to play it, but there was a Steam sale and I got suckered in. I loved Wasteland 1 so much and I was afraid they’d muck it up. And then I started playing…and now I’m over halfway through and up to my eyeballs in scrap.
Yes, these stories are trendy, fictional tall tales that were only invented in the 90s. Funny how several pages back in the thread, we had Starving Artist saying just the opposite- that back in the 60s college guys were drugging women and sleeping with them left and right and it was a-OK back then! The women even laughed about it afterward!
So, which is it? A trendy story? A real occurrence that’s happened hundreds of times that no one should get upset about? Or is the answer “any answer that makes defends a rapist’s actions and makes it all the woman’s fault”?
Well I wouldn’t have said that–the similarities are part of what makes them very believable IMO. But in any case, see later posts in the thread for other responses to my post which I think make good points.
I read it as an observation that some among those who would dismiss and demean the accusations have *themselves * multiple not necessarily consistent stories as to why. Either it was back in a time when it was no big deal, or it’s a trendy recent moral panic/SJW cause, or there there’s a lot of vindictive crazy women who play the “rape card” too casually, or the women failed to seek prosecution on the spot, or the stories are too similar or the stories are too dissimilar; what they have in common is that there’s some reason why the women are not to be believed, or that in any case if Cosby actually did something, it was not *that bad(). Problem with the last one is that it involves admitting that something did happen that was not entirely harmless and innocent(**).
This variance by itself is no more condemning than inconsistencies on the other side, since every person has a different way of looking at the world, but some of them, as in whether drugged rape was a 60s or a 90s moral panic seem to lead to it never having been an issue.
(*) A large number of the accusations have a common element of that he tried to or did, what we used to call, “take advantage” of her(**) while drunk or high. Well guess what: a large segment of the population in the year 2014 now calls that “rape”. Should it be so? There have been debate threads on that before.
(**Which BTW you may notice that though not portrayed as criminal the term “taking advantage of her” is still loaded with the meaning of it being unethical.)
Again, I must say: Who provided Cosby with the drugs? It sounds as though this was not something scored from a pal after a gig. Rapid onset of the drug makes me believe it was a pharmaceutical that Cosby was buying.
They must all be very very bad women. All of them, greedy little hands trying to get a piece of his pie. He’s probably just attracted to the wrong kind of woman, that’s all. Just wanted to help them all relax, I’m sure.
And of course it’s an insult. Despite your presumption I’m not the type to try splitting hairs over such things as asking/calling in the first place. On the rare occasion I screw up and break a board rule it’s always been my practice to acknowledge it and take pains not to do it again, which is what I will do this time as well.
I would say that the similarities, combined with the fact that many of the women seem to have witnesses who claim they told that story privately at the time – when the women presumably hadn’t talked to each other, or read the public comments – is what makes them believable.
Why do you care? Drugs (most of which are pharmaceuticals) are widely available, especially if you are rich and in show business. He may have had several suppliers. He may have convinced those suppliers he needed the drugs to help him sleep, or they may have suggested that he use them to rape women. What difference does it make?
I’m just gonna go home and play Wasteland 2 until my eyes bleed.
