Cosby Accusers may be making it even harder to believe True Victims of Sexual Assault

Much has been said about Camille Cosby, the wife of comedian Bill Cosby, coming out to defend her husband in a written statement.  I don’t find that hard to believe seeing as how they have been together for quite some years and probably have survived much worse than this in their years of marriage that did not make the papers or cable news.  I think that I would have been more confused and seen it as a bigger point had she not.

Now we can look at this in a couple of ways.  The first being that after so long of marriage, Ms. Cosby may be blind to the adventures of her husband or just wish to remain in the dark.  I can’t really follow that because this would imply that Ms. Cosby is slow and stupid which could never be further from the truth.  Camille Cosby probably knows more than many of us combined and has probably forgotten more than many of us will ever know so her being oblivious does not make sense to me.  The second point could be that she is complicit and an accessory to the going-ons of her husband.  I truly can’t see that either as I have watched her in a few interviews.  She comes across as a very strong woman and will not be controlled or pushed around by anyone especially her husband.  Mr. Cosby looks to lean on her a lot from their body language and she seems quite capable of holding him up.  My thought is that she found out about these complaints as soon as they happened and was among those making the final decisions as to what they will do about them.  I surmise that the settlement reached in one of the cases were the one and only time Mr. Cosby has ever went against her wishes and since that day, he has referred to her on how to go about the rest of the trip.  I surmise that she wanted long ago to come forward but was strongly advised against it until this last straw which tells me that even those who thought they could control the main players in this show was so wrong when she said enough.

The problem for me is not whether these things happened or not.  That will be judged by someone far better at it than I will ever be.  The final and most devastating judgment will come when all those involved directly and indirectly face their maker.  The problem for me is the questions surrounding why the very long wait to step up and if those who stepped up are to be believed, their actions makes it harder for those who wish to believe to believe. Here are a few examples of what I mean.

Judy Huth says that when she was a minor back in 1974, she was molested by Cosby but we know no more than that and it appears no more information is forthcoming.  It is reported that Cosby settled a 2005 civil suit that alleged sexual misconduct but it dies right there without saying who, what, when and where.  There is now “model Janice Dickinson, who alleges Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1982” but questions range high because with the need for drama when she was featured at a rehab clinic nothing about this was mentioned there and something like that would be key to her recovery wouldn't it?  Tamara Green is reported to have sued Mr. Cosby for defamation but still nothing.  Finally we have another model Beverly Johnson who alleges Cosby drugged her in the mid-1980s.  While it may be easy to prove that Mr. Cosby liked hanging out with models, it does nothing to prove anything else.  Ms. Johnson says she was able to detect and fight both the effects of the drug and Mr. Cosby.  I tend to scratch my head on that one because if this was Mr. Cosby’s motive of operation, surely he would have perfected it by 1980 and no one would have been able to detect or fight off the effects and him.

Basically all that I am saying is now those who are truly sexually assaulted will have many more hurdles to jump in order to get people and authorities to believe them based on this.  If it happened then stand firm and don’t retreat but if it is for any other reason than think about the damage that you are doing to those who will be sexually assaulted and how much more difficult you have just made that passage for them.  Sometimes, one can be better served thinking first of others instead of thinking only about themselves.