Bill Cosby - how is this possible?

[Lord Lannister]

It's not complicated: no one thinks he's innocent (well, I hope so).

It's like coming in and telling people that there is no grey area with the Nazis if someone discusses some less explored facet of their conduct.

Godwin's Law triumphs again.

[Fragile Bird]

Yes, a quaalude just like Xray said. It's a sleeping pill that was mostly used as a recreational drug to induce feelings of arousal and makes people very pliable. Even your link describes him as plying her or convincing her to take it. This is the drug they do all throughout Wolf of Wall Street. Was huge back when this happened.

"Hey 13 year old, take this mysterious pill it'll totally be a good time!" She was drugged.

They gave a 13 year old alcohol and recreational drugs to make her pliable and then he raped her.

Learn something new every day. Every time I ever read about quaaludes it was as a recreational, illegal drug, thought it was a hallucinogenic. Never knew it was prescribed as a sleeping pill (I have never used sleeping pills, and I don't know anyone who uses them). When I was young, people used quaaludes to get mellow. Why the hell would you take a recreational drug that puts you to sleep? The mellow part I understand, but if I was getting stoned I'd like to enjoy the experience, not pass out. :p

[Shryke]

Learn something new every day. Every time I ever read about quaaludes it was as a recreational, illegal drug, thought it was a hallucinogenic. Never knew it was prescribed as a sleeping pill (I have never used sleeping pills, and I don't know anyone who uses them). When I was young, people used quaaludes to get mellow. Why the hell would you take a recreational drug that puts you to sleep? The mellow part I understand, but if I was getting stoned I'd like to enjoy the experience, not pass out. :P

Apparently if you fight through the urge to sleep you get hit with other effects afterwards or something.

[The Fallen]

As Summah stated, this started when comedian Hannibal Burress did a bit where he calls out Cosby's hypocrisy in telling black comedians not to curse when he's a rapist. That's what renewed the rape allegations.

I bring it up because one of the women made a comment that caught my attention. She said that no one paid attention when the women initially made the allegations. But now that a man called Cosby a rapist it's all over the news. Not that that's a bad thing. But it lends credence to the belief by women that they're not taken seriously when they come forward with accusations of having been sexually assaulted.

[YellowDogJen]

I had also thought about starting a thread about Bill Cosby a couple of days ago. I've read several articles about the accusations - it looks really bad for Cosby. When so many women recount such similar stories, well...I think it's probably true.

Of course, he's gotten away with it for years and he still will, most likely. He might have to pay some money, which is no big deal for him.

I had never heard about these rape allegations before. Cosby's team did a great job of covering this up. I was a fan of the "Cosby Show" and watched it every Thursday. I always thought he seemed like such a nice guy. Guess not.

It's disgusting that it took some comic to raise this issue and the victims were ignored or hushed up. I don't understand how so many celebrities and sports players come back from this stuff, but I guess it shows how little many people care about women. Roman Polanski, as mentioned, but also Mike Tyson, Jimmy Page, Rob Lowe, Woody Allen...the list goes on and on.

I don't get it.

I think that Jameis Winston is another case, as well.

[Tywin Manderly]

It's disgusting that it took some comic to raise this issue and the victims were ignored or hushed up. I don't understand how so many celebrities and sports players come back from this stuff, but I guess it shows how little many people care about women. Roman Polanski, as mentioned, but also Mike Tyson, Jimmy Page, Rob Lowe, Woody Allen...the list goes on and on.

I don't get it.

People care more about saving their own skins than about victims since rocking the boat carries considerable risks and little rewards.

[YellowDogJen]

People care more about saving their own skins than about victims since rocking the boat carries considerable risks and little rewards.

I meant the general public, really. These men should be shunned, but they're not. After a few years or less, they jump right back into the spotlight with no apparent harm done to their careers.

[Castel]

I meant the general public, really. These men should be shunned, but they're not. After a few years or less, they jump right back into the spotlight with no apparent harm done to their careers.

Yup. A lot of the apologia we run into personally really has nothing to do with reaping the benefits of having Bill Cosby or whoever on top. Their image of Cosby > than whatever happened to a real person, quite simply.

Luckily things aren't the same.Social media won't be tamed and the media has an interest in following them for clicks now. Almost everyone on that list had their scandal a while ago. And, if they didn't, they had issues recently. The Woody Allen thing got so bad that it became incredibly uncomfortable for Cate Blanchett to thank the director of her movie. People are getting their shows cancelled left and right for saying the wrong thing alone.

[Tywin Manderly]

I meant the general public, really. These men should be shunned, but they're not. After a few years or less, they jump right back into the spotlight with no apparent harm done to their careers.

That's the way to do it. First wait until the storm blows over and people have moved on to the next issue/scandal.Then hire a good PR team and one can bounce back from almost any scandal, except for pedophilia and murder.

[BloodRider]

Q:

How could this go on for so long without coming out?

A (partial):

I'll admit when the accusations started coming out I dismissed them and figured there are segments of the media that would love to take Cosby down because they don't like his views.

A (still partial but more egregious):

Unfortunately for Mr. Cosby, it doesn't really matter whether or not he's innocent--once these accusations of rape had surfaced, he was convicted. I find some of the accusations quite dubious, having read some of them, but it really doesn't matter. Cosby will subverted by a media (and legal) tribunal--chalk it up to the "rape culutre"--where he's the one who has to disprove these accusations. If he's proven to be guilty, then my hope would be that he'd own up to it and take responsibility. If he's not proven to be guility, then I hope he can salvage whatever is left of his reputation.

---

These accusations are just such a 180 degree turn from the image he portrayed.

Maybe not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAorIG6MZnc

[maarsen]

Sorry, Athias, you are burying your head in the sand. Ten women have already made their stories public, and, give it time, I bet another 10 or more show up.

A lawsuit was brought years ago, but never went to trial because he settled out of court. I heard a lengthy interview with the prosecutor in Pennsylvania, iirc, who had been referred the complaint of a Toronto woman by Ontario police authorities 10 years ago. She had been afraid to speak up and did not go to the police until a year had passed by. The prosecutor believed her story, but by that time there was simply no corroborating evidence that could be obtained ie like from blood tests.

Cosby was a huge star, with a goofy, sweet, funny reputation. He mad jello commercials, for crying out loud. He was Dr. Huxtable on the Cosby show, surely the kind of aw shucks, great bedside manner (!) kind of doctor we would all like to have. Who the hell would believe he was a pervert who liked to drug women and rape them while they were unconscious? Years ago, when I used to listen to his comedy albums, he had a skit about using Spanish Fly to drug a woman. I didn't know what Spanish Fly was, and when I found out, I couldn't figure out why anyone would find drugging a woman to be funny. This must be 30 or 40 years ago.

We in Canada have just been rocked by the Jian Ghomeshi scandal. Jian was a superstar of CBC radio, with a 2 hour morning program that millions listened to every week and that was heard across the NPR network in the USA. Utterly charming, totally sincere, walked on water. Liked to take star struck ladies to his house and beat them and strangle them during sex, what he considered 'consensual S&M'.

How is this possible, zelticgar? It's possible because a man's word is 10 times more believable than a woman's. It's possible because many men consider women to be sexual objects, not human beings. It happens because people say "what adults do is none of my business".

When I was younger I would probably dismissed most of the accusations. Now that I am older and I hope, wiser I feel ashamed that it has taken so long to get this out into the open. Now I have no interest in listening to anything Cosby has ever done or starred in.

[Fragile Bird]

This story from the Washington Post just popped up on my Facebook news feed. At least 16 women have made allegations against Cosby, and they date back decades ago. . It's an interesting story. Any woman who has had issues in their life since their confrontation with Cosby has been labelled by his lawyers as someone obviously unreliable. While most of those women never reported the attacks, they did confide in friends, and the friends can at least confirm the fact they were told the stories of the assaults 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/bill-cosbys-legacy-recast-accusers-speak-in-detail-about-sexual-assault-allegations/2014/11/22/d7074938-718e-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html

[Summah]

There are also assaults into at least the mid 2000s. The lawsuit he settled (which had the woman from Temple and 13 Jane Does who were willing to testify they were also sexually assaulted by Cosby) was from the mid 2000s, I imagine that woman is under a legal gag order now, but that means there is at least a 40 year pattern here of women telling detailed, similar stories about being drugged and then raped and other forms of sexual assault by Cosby.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Yeah, there's really no reasonable way to deny this at this point. It's a wonder it has stayed under wraps for this long.

[Castel]

This story from the Washington Post just popped up on my Facebook news feed. At least 16 women have made allegations against Cosby, and they date back decades ago. . It's an interesting story. Any woman who has had issues in their life since their confrontation with Cosby has been labelled by his lawyers as someone obviously unreliable. While most of those women never reported the attacks, they did confide in friends, and the friends can at least confirm the fact they were told the stories of the assaults 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/bill-cosbys-legacy-recast-accusers-speak-in-detail-about-sexual-assault-allegations/2014/11/22/d7074938-718e-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html

Cosby tossed down two $100 bills as he left, a gesture that Green took as a deep insult, she said. She did not think of herself as a girl who could be bought, but she felt helpless to do anything. She feared Cosby’s power. But there was another thing that she fretted about. Her young brother was dying from cystic fibrosis, and the day after the alleged incident, Cosby visited him at the children’s hospital where he was being treated, showing up with gifts and entertaining the other young patients, Green said. Her brother adored the star, and knowing Cosby gave him a certain cachet in the hospital ward and garnered him extra attention from nurses in his final days, she said. She worried about jeopardizing all that.

I'd had the facts summarized for me but it's something else to see it all written down one after another. Stuff like this...

This is fucked.

[Wee baby Shamus]

The one thing that bothers me about the Cosby situation is that since the stories are a news story again is that he hasn't denied the allegations but instead he is refusing to discuss them.

I know if I was innocent I would be telling everyone I could that I was innocent.

[Summah]

Proclaiming innocence loudly often makes people look more guilty, so Cosby may not be taking the best approach, but not the worst approach either in terms of his own PR.

[DanteGabriel]

Proclaiming innocence loudly often makes people look more guilty, so Cosby may not be taking the best approach, but not the worst approach either in terms of his own PR.

Trying to manipulate and intimidate a journalist into editing out the mere mention of allegations is pretty scummy and damning.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/media/cosby-associated-press-video/

[Summah]

Trying to manipulate and intimidate a journalist into editing out the mere mention of allegations is pretty scummy and damning.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/20/media/cosby-associated-press-video/

Oh I am in no way defending Cosby, believing him means believing 20+ women are lying and I don't, and this whole editing interviews and certain subjects he won't discuss in interviews seems to have been something that's been going on quite a while, probably at least since the settled suit in 05. It's only coming out now because he has much less power to write his own narrative and has become toxic. I was just responding creepo's argument that not saying he is innocent lends validity to the allegations, and really that part only lends validity to having a PR strategy not thought up by a child.

[Shryke]

I think it more suggests he's got no response. He's never had any response other then "I'm powerful enough to crush you if you come at me". Now that this is no longer true, he has no possible responses.