It's taken me several days to push down any desire that I may have had not to comment about the Bill Cosby debacle. Oh, I've read a few of the stories, commented on one and was labeled a "victim shamer", but for the greater good I decided not to enter the fray. Besides there are sooooo many more important issues that should be addressed, that it seems almost ludicrous for me, someone that would like to be considered a serious writer, to comment on a media blitz that is chocked full of sleaze, alleged sexual crimes and/or just plain old fashioned racism.
Here I am, nonetheless writing about the gigantic elephant in the room and I know that the feminists will howl and label me " a self hating woman" and others will simply decry my honest attempt of trying to ingest just a tad of reality into the media's latest sacrifice of yet another, alleged famous black rapist.
I'm a woman. I was one of the few that rose in the ranks of corporate bank management way back in the 1970's. I had the pleasure of working in prominent flagship offices of several major banks in downtown Los Angeles as well as in Beverly Hills. I had my share of unasked for sexual attention from men and their wallets ran the gamut from not having a pot to piss in to extremely wealthy business owners to a few of Hollywood's darlings. At the time, I was told that I was attractive, but I somehow had enough brains and perseverance to avoid using my feminine wiles to sleep my way to the top.
But this piece is not about me, but I felt the need to state my reality as a woman during the late 1960's through the mid 1980's and how I feel about issues about sex netween men and women, today, speeding towards seventy.
I am astounded by the sheer number of people that have crawled our of the woodwork to claim that the Cos raped and/or assaulted them some twenty, thirty, forty or even fifty odd years ago. A post from The Huffington Post is the reason that I lost it over the Cosby allegations and decided to enter the fray. I took the time to interview several more women about the allegations that have recently emerged to accuse Cosby of the unthinkable. Yet HuffPo, in its signature journalistic excellence, decided to publish these latest accusations without doing any research on the women, their involvements with Mr Cosby on the specific dates and times and just decided to print the defamatory statements from the claimants. To lend an aura of journalistic integrity, HuffPo did state: "The Huffington Post subsequently reached out for further comment on (names withheld by this author) claims, but had not received a response at the time of publication". So, in the world of HuffPo editors and writers, it's clearly okay to run with a story just so long as it generates clicks?
Now, lets look at a few of my very real sexual encounters, years and years ago. My reality versus these stories from a number of the women that have accused Cosby of sexual impropriety.
Example number 1: "With his hand on top of mine [Cosby] had me massage his penis". Now, I know for a fact that in the world of Louis CK that this is the "saddest" kind of sex there is. I would think that Cosby, and I know I would have, sought out something a bit more exciting!
Example number 2: "....[Cosby] pulls me really tight to him, kisses me on the mouth, like really really rough and I just took my hands and I pushed him away". Even as a well-endowed twelve year old, I have never had a man walk into my "personal space" uninvited, meaning, I have never had a man put their hands on me, much less entrap me, kiss or touch me, without my consent. So, my question to this specific accuser is "why did you not push him away BEFORE he kissed you on the mouth really really rough"?
I've had a man, a doctor, try and convince me that I should have sex with him because he was so so sexy with his artificially tanned and extremely tough leather skin attached to his elfin-like hands and stature topped off by a quickly darting lizard-like tongue. This paragon of male sensuality even had the audacity to volunteer and show me the "notches" on his penis (his way of personally tallying his alleged sexual conquests). For some odd reason the man assumed his revelation would be, you know, as an inducement for me to join his roster of obviously desperate women. Really? Please!
Example number 3: "....she does not remember whether Cosby forced sex on her, because she was drugged....?
Really? She can't remember because she was drugged, but her accusation against Cosby is printed, because? Oh right! Her story just keeps the snowball rolling down the hill picking up speed and validity!
Most of these women remind me of the people whose second cousin removed just won the lottery and feel that they should share in the bounty or at least bask in the bright light of media fame for maybe longer than Honey Boo Boo's mom.
Back in the day, I had men to say absolutely crazy things to me. Here's one memory.
I was a lender in the second largest bank in California at the time, a branch in Beverly Hills. I was the only black female and I was on fast track for VP in Commercial Lending.
One day a Bro, a black man, walked into the branch and requested to speak to a lending officer. He was sent to my desk. He sat down, looked me up and down and then stated: "Somebody needs to strip that silk off yore back, slap you around a few times, and then keep you at home pregnant and barefoot." I smiled sweetly and promptly directed the gentleman to my fair-haired male counterpart. To this day I consider his comments more insulting than if he had assaulted and/or raped me . No one else would validate my interpretation of his words as rape or assault and I understand that this is my perception.
So, these Cosby accusers? Are we dealing with misjudged perceptions? It happens.
I also had customers that offered me spur of the moment flights to Paris for dinner - "just keep that little black dress and your passport ready" and I never waited for a table at the top restaurants in Bev Hills because I was the person with the pen - meaning - I was Santa Claus with the banks money; nothing more, nothing less. The town was rife with rich old guys with pretty young things on their arms, and that was in the disco days of the 1970's. Powerful, rich men were not an unknown commodity and young women and climbers knew the rules of the age-old game. I can't understand how these cherubs missed that day in class. I know that I was aware and I didn't have to play the game because I had the ultimate appeal, the power to approve and grant loans of enormous size.
I once had a movie producer offer me vodka and long lines of coke at his office at the studio while requesting a loan to finish production for a film. I somehow managed to reject the glamor and mystique, the limo, the prestige of screwing a name Hollywood producer and walk out of his office sober, not drugged, and unmolested.
The point is, we must all start taking personal responsibility for many of the things that happen to us in life. If I had been invited to a party by a man, as reported by one of Cosby's accusers, and if when I arrived I was the only person there, I would have, maybe waited fifteen minutes for other guests to arrive, and then I would have surely left the premises, no questions asked.
And this is where I and the current feminist mantra part....I am not, nor have I ever been a victim. I know that I am extremely lucky being a woman that has never been brutally or even nominally assaulted and/or raped in my lifetime. I am also grateful that my daughters have never been sexually abused.
My mother and I have tried to teach my daughters how to 'carry' themselves and you can bet I taught my son how he should always treat a woman. I have never been upset with a man that was obviously, and out-loud attracted to me. Much of my professional life, I was the lone female surrounded by a sea of rich and powerful men, my existence shrouded by the "good ole boys club" and I heard and I told salacious, sexist jokes with the best of them. Perhaps the fact that I attended an all girls Catholic HS and was taught by my dad to never fear, prepared me for a world where it was okay for a man to appreciate my physical attributes without him being a sexist pig.
I know nothing is going to change our nation's voracious appetite for the unseemly, but it would be very nice if media folks gave equal time and vigor to the important issues, such as global warming, the Keystone XL Pipeline and the facts regarding its extension, immigration, torture, whistle-blowers, even spending more time to expose the number of young black men that are murdered by police, or simply sentenced to a life incarceration by our unequal justice system.
Then perhaps the media sacrifice of Bill Cosby based solely on alleged actions might be a bit more palatable!