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For a while it seemed that every day, or at least every week or two, more women stepped up to accuse Bill Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them. Instead of being the funny family man, Cosby has become the butt of jokes, his reputation tattered and torn to bits. It’s been hard to keep track, but at this point, over 40 women have aimed public accusations at Cosby, ranging from unwanted sexual advances to being rendered immobile by pills or drugged drinks and then raped.
Once in a while, a media piece about how Cosby is still “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law” comes out. And those who defend Cosby in web comments yell “Conspiracy!” But why would over three dozen women, most of whom don’t know each other, want to come forward and admit to what they say happened to them so many years ago? No woman wants to confess about how she mistakenly trusted Cosby when he offered her a “miracle cure” pill for her headache or a drink to calm her nerves, and then woke to find Cosby on top of her or flapping around in his bathrobe. Ashamed and embarrassed, most of the women chose to remain silent. And 30 or 40 years ago, not one of them thought the police would believe her story against the beloved comedian.
Then Cosby fatigue set in. Maybe this is what Cosby was hoping for—that a numbness would set in when we heard yet another woman telling basically the same story. That we would start to shrug it off. Culturally, we don’t have a lot of patience for a story that goes beyond its allotted fifteen minutes. Ho hum, another woman drugged and sexually assaulted by Cosby, but hey, he’s still a great comedian, isn’t he? If Cosby chooses to ignore the women, we might as well too! Is that the message?
No, it’s not.
These women are no longer cowed by the big powerful star. For the most part, they are now mature women who have had careers of their own. They have held these stories inside themselves, telling perhaps a husband or friend. They came forward in support of each other, which is what women do. That happened to you? Why, it happened to me as well! Cindra Ladd, married to film producer Alan Ladd Jr. and certainly not seeking any monetary reward, perhaps said it best: “The simple answer is that it’s the right thing to do. The truth deserves to be known.”
And it’s the truth that sets us free, as I learned when I finally told the story of my father’s incestuous relationship with me. These are the types of stories we bury deep within us. Perhaps that’s what Cosby was counting on: that these women would never have the desire to tell of their shame or have the power to be believed. No one would have believed it about my father, who was a prominent attorney in our small town. And they wouldn’t have believed that the priest my good Catholic father confessed to would lift his cassock so this “naughty girl” could take care of him as well.
Unfortunately, the timing for bringing a legal case against Cosby is long gone for almost all the women, but things are not necessarily going his way these days. A judge in California ruled that Cosby can’t dismiss a sexual assault lawsuit that was filed by Judy Huth, since she was just 15 when her Cosby encounter happened in 1974. And the state of Nevada has changed its statute of limitations for rape charges, all because of what’s happened with Cosby.
I want Judy to have her day in court. I want Cosby to feel some real consequences for his despicable actions. I want the women to realize they have nothing to feel guilty about, or ashamed, or dirty. A predator is a predator, whether he’s a beloved star or a jailed sociopath. I want us all to wake up to the reality of sexual assault and what it can do to a life. I want these women to know that we support them in their quest to tell their truth.
After all, Bill, truth heals.
