Bill Cosby

[FreshwaterSelkie]

It seems that he will stand trial for one of the sexual assaults he's accused of: link

Interesting to note that he has already settled a civil suit with the woman in this trial. In that civil suit, he admitted that he obtained drugs with a view to giving them to women so he could "have sex" with them, or as you might also put it, incapacitate them to make it easier to assault them.

Thoughts? I'll set my stall right out and say that I believe the accusers and it seems as though he is a serial sexual predator. It's just too much of a stretch that so many women would come forward with the same story. Also, I HATE the tactic his lawyers are using, which is to imply that there had already been sexual touching between the two of them before the alleged assault, so she was obviously up for it. No bloody wonder some of the other women were reluctant to come forward.

Side note: he also thinks it's funny.

He is odious. #Ibelievethem

But as we know with Dave Lee Travis, 15 women saying the same thing about a man is still not as believable as a man's word.

But as we know with Dave Lee Travis, 15 women saying the same thing about a man is still not as believable as a man's word.

So how do you change the current legal system to change this?

So how do you change the current legal system to change this?

Put more women in powerful positions.
Not familiar enough with the US legal system to know if there are any specific laws to blame. But I think it's mostly the male or male-identified judges.

There is no doubt at all about this man's guilt, he openly brags about his crime, and if we lived in a sane world, he would go to prison for a long, long time.

Since we don't live in a sane world, we can but hope that common sense prevails.

Put more women in powerful positions.

I wonder if this is enough by itself? It was a woman judge who initially found Oscar Pistorius not guilty of murder. Women judges still have to follow legal process.

What do you suggest might be done grimarse?

I hope he will be next on 2016's celeb death list

I don't know. I am not a legal expert. We have an adversarial system of trial, and we have a burden of proof that varies according to the type of trial.

Obviously, we cannot just accept the word of everyone who brings about an accusation - or can we? Could we accept that a high enough proportion of those who bring accusations of sexual crimes means that we find all defendants guilty? Then we can accept that a small number of innocent people will be incarcerated, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Or do we change the burden of proof? Do we say 'guilty until proven innocent'? Do we have a non-adversarial system instead? What works best in other countries?

Could we accept that a high enough proportion of those who bring accusations of sexual crimes means that we find all defendants guilty?

Well, that is pretty poor grammar! I meant to say that the proportion of false accusations is relatively low.

"we" don't have any particular power to change the American legal system. I don't live there, nor do I live in the UK, so I'm not a "we" there, either.

I see my action here as just standing up to be counted to say that in the face of the tide of opprobrium coming the way of the women involved, I believe them. I support feminist causes in the country I'm in, and the UK, chipping away at the patriarchy. I write letters, I sign petitions, I subscribe to feminist publications and chuck some money their way when I can, I get embroiled on feminist boards in a baffling amount of what-aboutery and derailing....

In this instance, I really did just want to discuss this case and see what other women thought about what seems to me to be a terrible abuse of celebrity power.

I think more open and frank discussions about human sexuality need to take place. Where sex is a mutually pleasurable and life affirming experience for all parties (where piv is not mandatory, and perceived as a goal). In short a lot of predatory based "sex-is-done-to-women" and not "done-with" heterosexual encounters are far too close to rape anyway.

We excuse sadistic kinks and fetishes as being all fine and dandy as long as it's going on between consenting adults, and cannot ask the question hang on a minute is this actually good for us?

Good point, Dervel. I do think it's worsening in that porn-style sexuality seems ubiquitous in a way it never was before. Where are the other narratives of women's sexuality? How can we strengthen those?

Though just to be clear, I don't think that rape is sex-gone-wrong. But thinking of sex as something that's "done to" women supports rape culture, supports rape myths, helps rapists get away with it etc.

In short a lot of predatory based "sex-is-done-to-women" and not "done-with" heterosexual encounters are far too close to rape anyway.

Absolutely. And only in that sort of rape culture is it possible to find Cosby not guilty of rape.

The line of reasoning his lawyers are using is apparently: "He thought she wanted to have sex done to her when she was awake, so it was okay to drug her and use her body to masturbate" - if people defined sex as mutually pleasurable activity, then it would be quite obvious to even the stupidest person, that this was rape. Because a woman who is unconscious with drugs (for all I know this was the case) could not enjoy anything.

He can, perhaps, create some doubt as to whether she "consented" i.e. didn't say that she didn't want it (which apparently constitutes consent according to some crappy laws), but no one in their right mind would ever believe that this was a mutually pleasurable sexual encounter.

Totally agree Dervel