Bill Cosby: Charming figure or rapist? Answer: Yes

     

By Mary Meehan

Menopausal Mom of Kentucky

(I am the one who loves One Direction)

Is Bill Cosby the warm, charming father figure we all loved on the The Cosby Show or the heinous predator who drugged women and raped them. Here is the answer: Yes

It's not an either or proposition.

 It is possible, really almost likely, the genial, handsome, smart guy who seems concerned and invested in these women can do great and horrible damage.

Because bad guys, those who aren't just clubbing people over the head in a back alley, need to have the skills to charm. Ted Bundy had to be sly and convincing enough to get all those women in his car so he could kill them.
We cling to the idea that we can identify a sexual predator because it makes us feel safer. There is solace in the fact that we can see him or her at a distance and know instinctively to cross the street. In that way we are in control. It also allows us to cling, in places we would never own up to, that when something bad happens to a woman, well, she maybe should have just little bit more on her game.

Guess what? That's not the deal.

Sure there are the whack job, crack-a-doodles who you know better than to sit next to on the bus. But the mental illness that plagues them at that point is so far out of control it is spilling over into their everyday world in a way they can't contain. 

Bill Cosby, and many sexual predators, cloak their perversion in civility because it keeps them safe and gives them access to the what they want. Would any of those women have gone backstage or to his house or to hotel room if he hadn't played the perfect, concerned friend?

Here is another thing I want you to consider. How would this play out if a string of men, now lawyers and doctors and successful business people and respected fathers plus a few world renowned celebrities, came out and made accusations against a beloved, iconic female figure. Let's say Betty White. (Sorry Betty.) She drugged them and fondled them all without permission when they were young.

It's hard to imagine because that kind of narrative never plays out in our culture.

But first, there would be a wink-wink, nudge nudge attitude that at least those guys got some. As for Betty (Sorry Betty.) she would be vilified and ridiculed. There would be jokes about how she can't get a man without slipping them a little something to dull their senses. I imagine there would be a T-shirt.

I can't imagine that as those numbers of men rose to 20 something that there would be the same sort of character gutting that is being aimed at these women. Would the men be called as calculating harpies out for money or revenge?

No because by definition harpies are women so that shows part of the problem. But that argument would fall flat because a man who obtained professional success must have done so on talent and skill and that gives him automatic standing in the world that isn't afforded to women no matter what they do.

Here is the final thing that makes me crazy. Some of these women have had trouble with drugs, alcohol or mental illness and depression and, Cosby's ever-narrowing line of defenders say, they should be discounted because of it.

Hmmm....being drugged, raped, toe sucked and dragged semi-conscious and stuffed into a cab by a trusted mentor and father figure. I don't know. That seems worthy of a little self-medication and PTSD.

I don't believe for an instant that 20 women spanning three decades have all colluded to ruin the legacy or career of Bill Cosby by telling disturbingly similar stories about how they were drugged, raped and sexually molested.
If you read the accounts, and there are many and everywhere, it seems Cosby had several go-to moves. Entice young actresses or models, feed them alcohol and mysterious pills. (So many pills you have to wonder, did he take his honorary "Dr" to mean MD? And, why exactly, did he have so much medicine on hand to relieve menstrual cramps?)

But there may be a real opportunity to talk about the reality of sexual violence. It happens. A few outliers are trolling the sidewalk in trench coats but many more are in board rooms and school committees and sets of television shows offering to give a young person a little free advice and a little attention to groom them.  Why do they take the chance? They believe they are entitled and they know if someone tells, no one will believe them.