You should re-read SA’s posts.
What did I say that equates to victim blaming?
Assuming the allegations are true, the following is what is known as “victim-blaming”
Claims made about events 30 to 40 years ago don’t impress me. The time to make these allegations was back then when the alleged crime occurred. Making these allegations now accomplishes nothing. How can Cosby even defended this many years later? Witness that could speak for him are not available. Records of where he was working and where he was on a specific day are long lost.
Cosby has never been a source of any scandal his entire life. Married to the same woman. No drug allegations. Never staggered out of a bar drunk. The guy earned a PHD in education (1976) while pursing acting. He spent his free time studying instead of staggering out of bars like most celebrities. He created Fat Albert as a positive role model for minority kids. He contributes to many charities.
It’s going to take some real evidence and not 30 to 40 year old accusations to convince me that this fine man has a Jekyll/Hyde persona.
*That’s a pretty crappy view of women to think that they would sleep with a star to get ahead then when that didn’t work resort to allegations of rape. *
Women? In general? What does this have to do with women in general?
In Hollywood, it’s routine for actresses, singers, and dancers to fuck for parts, to fuck to get a rival actress on a TV show fired, to fuck to get the best producers for their albums, you name it. Not that it’s unheard of outside of Hollywood. This goes on, in varying degrees, everywhere, and always has.
Really, if you’re having casual sex with people you just met an hour ago, for free, why not have sex to get a plum job or high profile role? Hell, I’ve had women offer to fuck me for a SAG voucher.
bolding added
Your quotes above are internally inconsistent. You question why I talk about women in general, then you extrapolate your point to women in general.
More specifically, though, I am not saying that that it is misogynistic to allege that women use sex to get ahead; I agree with you that it happens. What I am criticizing is the opinion that women who consciously use sex to get ahead would then, after their scheme fails, be so unable to deal with this fact that they would have to subconsciously convince themselves that they had been raped in order to deal with this fact…
See, this is the problem. Even by your own admission you are just blindly assuming the allegations are true, and then you reflexively accuse anyone who disagrees with your assumptions of misogyny and victim-blaming. Do you not see the problem with that way of thinking?
With regard to Hefner and Quaaludes, I would be very surprised if he had to drug the women who came into his orbit in order to get them to sleep with him. There have been many unsubstantiated claims over the years regarding Hefner, the two Mansions, and drugs. None have ever been proven, and drugs have never been found on the occasions when the authorities have managed to stage a raid on the places.
I am not assuming the allegations are true. In order to define “victim-blaming” you have to assume a victim. If the allegations are true, you are victim-blaming. If the allegations are untrue you are misogynistic because you are assuming that women are so weak that they can’t deal with the fact that they tried to sleep with a star to get ahead and were rejected. The non-misogynistic view is that these women are opportunistic bitches who have something tangible to gain from their accusations, such as money or fame.
I never said anything about a “scheme”. Some of the ways these women thought Cosby could benefit them were quite modest and wouldn’t have necessitated any sort of “scheme”.
And I don’t believe my notions about what a handful of women might possibly have done in regard to Cosby equates to a blanket condemnation of all women, as the ridiculously overused accusation of misogyny suggests. If you made suggestions as to the possible motives of a handful of guys who’d been accused of a rape that they may or may not have committed, would I be justified then in claiming you hate men?
[quote=“psychobunny, post:106, topic:705075”]
My quotes are internally consistent. But I think you meant “internally inconsistent”.
It’s been demonstrated that some women will lie about being raped in order to cover up consensual sex that embarrassed or disgraced them. Lying about mercenary sex isn’t much different.
http://www.ocweekly.com/2006-02-09/news/great-dick-babe/
T
I concede your point. I will withdraw misogynistic in general but not victim-blaming. Again, I am not stating which side is the truth, but if I were to state that even if these women voluntarily slept with Cosby, the fact that he gave them Benadryl before sex when he knew it could make them sleepy and that therefore they could claim that they were “drugged” even if they were fully conscious and aware and consenting meant that Cosby deserved to be publically accused of rape because he should have known better, that would also be victim-blaming.
I definitely know that there are false accusations of rape. This, however, is different from a case of somebody making a film that they later regretted or having sex with multiple men in college, when they know that their reputation will be damaged. Women who have previously been anonymous do not come forward decades later to cover up shame or embarrassment that has never been public and never has a risk of being public.
This is a response to Belowjob; the above was a response to SA.
Again, I am not saying that the allegations are true. I think it entirely possible that some of these women could have accused Cosby in order to get money or for other unknown reasons. I will say, though, that there are a lot of women who still appear to have little to gain and a lot to lose by coming forward.
I don’t want to believe this about Bill Cosby, but it does have the ring of truth to it, in my opinion.
The only way it could be PROVEN of course, would be for damning evidence to magically materialize, or for him to confess, and neither of those seem likely. So it’s unlikely that he’ll answer for these crimes in any court other than that of public opinion.
Guess it’s better than nothing.
He’d better hope he’s been wise with his money, because I can’t see him earning very much in show biz from here on out. The fact that he’s signing up to do a new sitcom in his 70s is telling, in my opinion - bringing a sitcom to pilot and then to series is a LOT of work, I don’t care HOW far up the food chain you are. I suspect he’s out of money from paying off women and paying his lawyers to keep his name unsullied.
AND, I’m inclined to believe Janice Dickinson as well - apparently she included this incident in her autobiography, and was convinced by the legal team to take it out. But the original version does exist - she was telling the exact same version of this several years ago. It’s not like she had mentioned this sort of incident and then thrown a dart at the Who’s Who in Hollywood and pinned it on some random celebrity. It was 1. Bill Cosby 2. she was drugged and 3. did not consent. It’s his M.O.
I think he’s guilty as hell, and he’s going down.
I agree with this. This is like the 5th case in recent months where the reputation of someone has been slaughtered and subsequent punishment has been decided on in the public domain. But at least the other cases had some kind of smoking gun. This case doesn’t even have that. It’s just a lot of he said/she said so far. At this point, because it’s a sexual case, the accusations of misogyny are already piling on for anyone even questioning that it might not have happened.
What’s troubling is that some people are starting to conflate tabloid journals with evidence in a court of law as though they have the same standard.
I’m conflicted because on the one hand, I’d like to see justice for women (and men too). On the other hand, internet railroading isn’t justice.
I also disagree with people who say that these women have nothing to gain by coming forward now. If they’re successful in taking down the reputation of a hugely successful person, that’s enough impetus for some people to put forward an accusation that doesn’t even have to be substantiated. I have certainly seen people make false accusations for a lot less.
Yeah, evidence would be a good thing. Witnesses, Police investigations reports. Complaints.
Otherwise these are old and stale allegations and should be treated the same way.
Going down?
No, he won’t be. Statute of limitations. On top of that, many of the allegations aren’t unambiguously clear. The marquee accuser, for example, had consenual sex with Cosby after the sexual assault. This complicates everything and makes it practically impossible to get a conviction.
No matter what, Cosby gets to keep his money. Even if he lost 2/3 of it, he’ still have 100 million dollars.
Cosby keeps his money but his reputation in Education and show business will never recover. A sixty year career in comedy and years of charitable service brought down by a few weeks of completely unproven ancient allegations.
Why do we take such pleasure in creating public heroes and then tear them down?
Certainly, though, we’ve seen precisely that sort of revelation in Britain lately.
This isn’t one woman making these claims. This isn’t two women. This isn’t three. It’s 14 at the moment. 14. We are not being asked to put him in prison, or to make a compensatory award. We are being asked to consider that this man is not safe to be around if you are a woman. I’ll definitely consider that these allegations could correctly describe history. I won’t be doing business with Dr. Cosby.
Cosby’s doctorate (actually it’s an Ed.D., not a Ph.D.) is a joke. He wasn’t required to attended classes and received course credit for his TV appearances.