Bill Cosby

[Vee]

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

I have a perfectly healthy family life. I condemn Camille and Evin Cosby for blindly supporting a man whose other side they must know something about, and dismissing over twenty victims. This has nothing to do with family, it has to do with denial and a conspiracy of silence in favor of material wealth and comfort. It's not different from the wife of Jerry Sandusky.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Vee

[SFK]

I don't know if you all ever read/saw The Prince of Tides (SPOILER), but the family is ambushed and raped by a group of brutes. The mother makes the executive decision to not tell the father or the police and she and the children are never to speak of it. My great-grandmother was raped by a mail carrier, kept it to herself for years in her stiff upper lipped first generation eastern European immigrant way. Was that the right way, the healthy way? It was HER way. Until you are a victim yourself, you can't fairly predict your reaction to an assault. How many of us imagined how we would have handled those terrorists if we'd been on one of those flights on 9/11? Playing Monday morning quarterback with someone else's trauma is unfair, pointless, gross.

[alphanguy74]

Your'e making an assumption that the material wealth and comfort are the only reasons that girl loves her father, and that Camille loves her husband. That's one hell of an assumption.... you don't know what YOU are talking about.

Edited December 16, 2014 by alphanguy74

[alphanguy74]

I have to say that I know myself well enough that I can predict my reaction to any situation like that. With the 9/11 thing, reactions would differ, because the passengers didn't have all the information. Most people would not assume it was a suicide flight, they'd probably assume it was a hijacking, which means a landing, hostage demands, etc.

[Vee]

That's not what I said. I think they may well love the man, but their family's image and their years of a life with him is the primary reason they can come out with a rock-solid defense, after a lifetime where the closest people to a person would have to know something.

[alphanguy74]

You think so? People live secret lives.... before the 70's, the vast majority of gay men lived entire secret lives, being married with children, and having sex with other men on the side. On hunting trips, fishing trips, poker games, etc. And their families never suspected. Don't hand me that.

Edited December 16, 2014 by alphanguy74

[GMac]

Thank you for this, you said it perfectly.

[marceline]

I have a pretty unhealthy family life (my brother's schizophrenic among other issues) where there's been a lot of work to try and get healthier so I have a different perspective. When you're raised surrounded by sickness and secrets, you tend to deal with it with more sickness and secrets. It takes time and work to unlearn that stuff. One of Cosby's daughters is a drug addict correct? That would be a perfectly reasonable coping mechanism to growing up in the house with the level of duplicity and sickness that would come from the kind of situation we're seeing unfold.

As for Camille, we don't know enough about her to know why she's doing anything. She could be an addict herself. She could have experience with sexual abuse in her own family of origin which led her to a guy like Cosby. He could have threatened or abused her in the past and maybe she was just grateful when his attention was elsewhere. She could be an accomplice with a whole twisted secret life of her own where she makes crush vids and plays the banjo. We just don't know.

I used to assist with a workshop for people dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, etc... and I learned damn fast that you can never assume just how sick another person or family is or what people are capable of doing to survive living with that day in and day out. I heard stories about what people did to each other that I never could've conceived of. One participant was a battered wife whose husband was a prominent member of the clergy. He'd preach about love and family to his congregation then push her down the stairs when she was pregnant. What that did to her concept of love, God and family was a horror to witness.

[marceline]

Sorry for the double post

Edited December 17, 2014 by marceline

[Vee]

Oh, I'm sure they are deeply enmeshed in the dysfunction. My point is, it's not simply a case of them just being babes in the woods. They have clearly internalized Life With Bill, as opposed to alphanguy saying they're just noble innocents. At least in the case of Camille, there's been more than one accusation which suggests she stepped out of the way or shut her ears. That I can't let go.

And my personal family life in my immediate home may be healthy, but my parents and their own homes, and their experiences of my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, etc. were deeply dysfunctional. My grandmother drank herself to death in and out of institutions and my aunt, who used to call me in the middle of the night when I was in college and rant about the evils of family, was brilliant but profoundly schizophrenic. Believe me, I am not coming out of the Brady Bunch.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Vee

[marceline]

Agreed with the bolded. I'm not trying to be an apologist for Camille. I just think we don't have any real information on her perspective. She's still kind of a blank slate.

My comment wasn't meant as a challenge. I'm sorry if it came off that way.

Edited December 17, 2014 by marceline

[Wales2004]

I'm not going to attempt to psychoanalyze anyone for whatever positions they want to take on this. There are probably a wide range of reasons why individuals would have a problem with their defense. I don't know any of them and I have no idea what they know, don't know, believe or don't believe. I just think it would be wrong on my part to assume that a wife and children are always well aware of all things pertaining to a husband/father.

His wife may have believed she was dealing with a cheating husband and maybe she was too consumed with her children and own issues to notice whatever signs/clues people believe a serial rapist would be leaving around the house. And who knows how the death of her son affected her.

And I don't think not being able to see something that everyone else thinks you should see in another person makes one stupid or blind either.

As for knowing how you'd react--you may very well be someone who knows how you'd react in a situation. Sometimes I think I'd know but there are situations where I'm unsure how I'd react.

I was raped as a child and I didn't figure out what happened to me until I was an adult. It greatly impacted aspects of my childhood and I know what it's like to be nine years old and want to die. I tried to kill myself and today which may seem funny to me today but certainly not then. Yet despite that, I cannot relate to any of these women. I simply cannot see myself knowingly keeping something like that secret for decades unless I had one of those moments like Pola Kinski who said she got tired of hearing people tell her what a great man her father was. I am certain I would not have been able to watch him on television or hear about how great he is without saying something. Any notion that we all would or should react the same way in a given situation seems faulty.

[Vee]

I didn't take it that way and I don't think you're an apologist, either. I was just clarifying my own background.

[dragonflies]

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[alphanguy74]

That says it all.