The Bill Cosby Effect

Bill Cosby, that fatherly entertainer, was a rapist. He was judged and will be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.

Like many of you, I enjoyed Bill Cosby as an entertainer, an actor who played family man, Dr. Huxtable, but I did not enjoy knowing that hat Bill Cosby was also a sexual predator and had sexually assaulted (raped) 60 women. Cosby's money bought him freedom from the allegations for decades, but the fact is that Bill Cosby was guilty of rape.

Rape is when one person takes sexual advantage of another, usually a man taking sexual advantage of a woman. It is the Harvey Weinstein effect. Weinstein used his power in Hollywood to use women as Kleenex, as victims, pitting their desire for a career in Hollywood against his power to make that Hollywood career happen for them. Rape is all about power over the powerless with women often playing the victim to a man's lust and power. They have no power, some of which they have given away in order to make themselves rich and famous, most of which doesn't happen. That is what the #MeToo movement is all about -- changing the playing field, putting victims in charge of their own lives at last.

Yes, when Bill Cosby drugged his lovers he committed rape. He won't acknowledge that fact, but it is a FACT.

Yes, he is old, but he committed these rapes for decades in the wake of his rising fame from the Robert Culp TV show, I Spy, in which he was teamed with Culp as the other half of a team. We cannot let Cosby go free just because he has lived his life and has become rich doing so while committing rape, even with women who had welcomed their sexual liaisons but were drugged into insensibility and raped by Cosby. Yes, it is rape when Cosby drugged them to have his wicked way with them, even though he had a consensual relationship with them at the time. A consensual relationship is only possible when the other person can agree and say yes to whatever the other person proposes while the woman in this case is able to say yes. When her voice and mind are stilled with drugs it is the same thing as when someone in a bar is hitting on you and uses drugs to put you in a more conducive frame of mind -- like with Roofies (Rohypnol).

In such a case the person who gave the victim Rohypnol circumvented the victim's normal responses and took advantage of his/her drugged state. That is the same thing that Cosby did when he drugged his consensual lovers in order to exert his power over them while they were in the throes of the drug. The drug doesn't matter. The fact is that Cosby rendered them compliant and thus took away their right to speak out and say yes or no. In that case, what he did was rape his victims.

I remember seeing an interview with a young woman who was Cosby's lover at the time and she said that she would have agreed, but he never gave her the chance, preferring to drug her into submission and then taking sexual advantage of her.

The worm has turned and women can finally get justice when a man rapes them or sexually assaults them. Cosby learned that his money didn't protect him -- and now it is time for politicians, no matter who they are or what high office they hold, to finally get the justice that their victims deserve.

That includes Bill Clinton when it comes to raping Juanita Broadrick. Clinton was president, but he was merely the governor of Arkansas when he raped Broadrick. He should be brought to justice, take his turn in the hot seat, and plead his case before a trial of his peers -- without his wife, Hillary, to defend his actions or plead his case before a judge.

There is one law, one law for all men, no matter how high they climb or how rich and famous they become, and that law states that rape is a crime and the rapist -- in the words of Hillary Clinton -- a super predator.

The same is true of sitting president, Donald Trump. If he has raped a woman or women in the past, he must also stand trial.

One law for all.

He will have to take his turn in the hot seat and face his accuser(s). No one gets away. There is not enough money to tear the blindfold from Justice's eyes. She is not dazzled by the money because she cannot see it. She is not dazzled by the fame or high position the accused has attained. She is blind by choice. Justice is blind and each accusor must face her rapist and hear the jury's verdict, not stopping until the criminal (super predator) is found guilty, sentenced, and accused. Bill Clinton thought he was safe, but in this country now with the Weinstein crimes shown in plain view, he was only safe for a while. Neither illness or advancing age, not his wealth, not is fame, and not his money will tear the blindfold from Justice's eyes. Bill Clinton will have to face his accusers and stand trial. Justice will finally be served.

If Donald Clinton raped a woman or took sexual advantage of a woman, then he, too, will have to face his accusers and stand trial. Being president didn't save Clinton and it will not save Trump either.

In the end, one law for all. That is the whole of it.

While we may break God's law with impunity, man's law is not the same. Not as long as man stands up and invokes Justice.

That is all. Disperse.

She Asked For It

It's not always about what you see, it's about what you do about it that counts. 

Follow the link and read it for yourself. It's important to know what's behind the words and what really matters when push comes to shove. Then make your decision.

That is all. Disperse.

Romance or Pornography?

I have been reading Jean M. Auel's Earth Children series, beginning with Clan of the Cave Bear and continuing through all the books, now that they are out. I am halfway through The Stone Shelters and had to put it down to read a couple of books for review. I am anxious to get back to it.

Recently, I found a taped interview with Jean Auel about the series and some of the research she did for the book. I listened with rapt attention as she described the painted caves of Lascaux and various archeological digs she had been on. What really caught my attention was the skeleton she saw and on which she based the beginning of what was originally supposed to be a short story, a story that ran to 450,000 words the first time out. That is when Auel knew she had to write a series of books to tell Ayla's story.

The skeleton had an amputated arm (not torn off or a birth defect, but an arm that had been cut off by someone with medical knowledge), was obviously blind (the eye was gone) and looked like Creb, the way Auel imagined him. Creb, The Mog-ur of the Clan of the Cave Bear, the most powerful magician of the Neanderthal world and the man whose hearth Ayla was adopted into when his sister Iza, the first Medicine Woman among the Clan, found and took care of a child of the Others (Cro-Magnons) whose family (and probably her people) had been killed in the same earthquake that had dispossessed Brun's (Creb and Iza's brother) group.

Auel always knew that the main character, Ayla, would be a strong and independent woman, and that Creb would be a part of the story, a very important part as it turned out. Ayla would not need to be protected or rescued and she would be a survivor -- and Ayla is a survivor still since the series is mainly about her life and journey .

During the interview the host took calls and one caller asked why Auel had put so much sex in the books. The caller obviously did not like the sex and had not allowed her daughter to read the second book, or any of the books following, because of the sex scenes. The caller's voice sounded disapproving, but she also sounded disgusted and felt the sex scenes brought down the tone and readability of Auel's series. The caller was downright vehement.

I do understand how she feels, coming from a family where sex is a taboo topic and anyone who talks about sex or in any way condones promiscuous sexual behavior is as much a whore as the person committing the breach of morals. I agreed with the caller for about a minute before I asked myself why sex should be dirty or bring the tone of a good book, or series of books, down. I don't know about anyone else, but I do know how I feel -- or rather felt. Embarrassed.

My embarrassment comes from two sources: my upbringing and my discomfort with explicit sex, no matter how it is rendered. I did laugh from time to time when Auel described Jondalar's penis as his manhood and his organ, but what really got to me was the description of the sexual details as though the act was romantic, which it was.

For some reason, many people react as though they are teenagers and sex is the mysterious wonder that their parents will not discuss openly in front of them or hide, like their father hiding his Penthouse and Playboy magazines, tittering over anatomic pictures in medical books and dictionaries. Some people thoroughly enjoy sex in their books and makes no bones about it and the rest are shocked by the filth that some writers will put in their books. "How can decent people write such stuff?" they ask, even though the writer has gone to great pains to use more euphemistic terms (manhood or organ). It all reminds me of She-Devil with Meryl Streep when she is sitting at a table outdoors trying out different words for clitoris (love . . .). I am sure Streep's author also used safer words for penis, vagina, clitoris, scrotum, etc. After all, she was writing soft porn for housewives, as one interviewer said.

There is sex everywhere in our modern world. Men objectify women, although often tastefully, to sell cars, fencing, John Deere harvesters, and so many other things that have nothing at all to do with sex, and the public buys it. The prudish sector of the public decries such blatant pandering and likens the women (and often young teenagers) posing for such ads as whore, tramps, and worse.

Shows like Queer as Folk  and Mike & Molly that treat sex as a biological function that everyone should enjoy are cited as pornographic. I still do not get what is pornographic about two consenting adults coming together to make love or even to pull off a quickie in a bath house or restroom stall so pornographic, especially since no penises were in evidence, and more's the pity. But that's just my preference. I figure if the media can expose women from top to bottom and full frontal then men should be treated the same way. Equal rights -- for the viewing public. I am still miffed that The Full Monty did not show anyone's full Monty. They were men and penises, hard or soft, are the enemy. Right! Tell me another one.

While sex is vilified in the strongest terms by the religious types who save sex for marriage and always behind closed doors, eschewing the possibilities of sex on the kitchen table or the living room floor, violence is front and center and few people complain. Oh, there are complaints, like teenagers not old enough to see violence in movies, though they are exposed daily to graphic violence in books and on the news every day, and the pacifists among us complain that violence is unnecessary. No one is more vocal or condemns quicker than the anti-gun supporters while they are standing in line to see Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Daniel Craig at their violent best in the movies.

When you come right down to it, there is no easy answer why the sensitive, and graphic, love scenes in Jean Auel's books will upset people more than the latest Tom Cruise testosterone fest as he plays super spy in his most recent action packed gun and bomb fest.

I think it all comes down to modern religion. It cannot be the ancient religions when sex was permissible anywhere and as often as possible between consenting adults (adults being women who had reached the age of menstruation -- usually about 10-12 years old -- and men who had been tasting the Mother's gifts ever since they began having wet dreams and spent time with the local woman who taught young men what women want). Sex was a biological urge and it was not hidden from young children, but celebrated and engaged in while children were present. After all, there is only so much you can hide behind a ring of rocks or drapes and room dividers. Sounds carry and children are curious enough to peek.

Part of the reason is likely also because people understand that babies are not a gift of the gods, or the Great Earth Mother, but the product of sexual relations between men and women. As Ayla describes it, babies come from the essence of a man when enjoying Pleasures with his mate or any woman he has shared Pleasures with. When men discovered they were part of the process, I am certain they decided that making sure a woman had sex only with them to ensure their fatherhood of the progeny and began to see sex not as a pleasurable activity that honored the life giving force, but a possession. As long as they could continue to enjoy Pleasures with any woman that would have them, they would still make sure that the only man their mates had was them. Enter patriarchal prerogative and women as possessions instead of thinking, intelligent beings in their own right who also happen to have cornered the market on nurturing life in their bodies.

Before this becomes an anti-patriarchal diatribe, I should also explain that this is conjecture. I am pretty sure of my theses, but I am also certain that men will be offended by being cast as promiscuous sexaholics more than willing to chain and lock up their wives' and girlfriends' sexual options.

What it all comes down to is conditioning. We have been conditioned to think of sex as private and naughty unless it is between consenting adults, and preferably married adults. I know I was. Too bad I did not follow the training forced on me, as evidenced by my oldest son who is the product of a 7-month marriage.

It is no wonder people view sex in books and movies and in actual fact as something dirty (sometimes a little bit and sometimes sin city), and that is not only because of sexually transmitted diseases. As one friend often reminds me, life is a terminal sexually transmitted disease.

I no longer skim the sex scenes in Jean Auel's books. I enjoy them. I am no longer titillated but I do feel a little nostalgic and a bit deprived. I see each sex scene as evidence of the deepening relationship between Ayla and Jondalar and essential to the plot, as proof that their relationship is loving and how the bonds between the Stone Age pair are forged.

Jean Auel reminded the outraged caller that there was a brutal rape in Clan of the Cave Bear when Broud forces Ayla to "...assume the position" to satisfy his urges. Although she was taught to be subservient to the men in her world, she knew deep in her soul that Broud's sudden interest in her had more to do with control and violence than in sharing what should be a romantic moment. The caller never did respond. Like so many of us, the caller was more comfortable with the rape scene than with the sex scenes in subsequent books. What does that say about the caller -- and indeed about the rest of us?

Earth's Children is not soft pornography or pornography of any kind. The sex scenes are not dirty, although they are a bit funny in the use of substitutes for anatomical body parts; the sex scenes are most definitely romantic.

When I was growing up I was taught that my curiosity about and interest in boys (kissing, holding hands, etc.) was unnatural and I was not a nice girl. Nice girls waited to have sex because it was special and the first time should be with someone I loved. While I agree that the first time should be special and with someone I cared for or was attracted to, I do not agree that sex is only permissible within the confines of marriage. Given a choice, I would prefer to be initiated by someone experienced in sharing Pleasures in a world where sex is a biological act that is pleasurable and to be desired. That is most definitely not pornography but romance, and it is and should be romantic, even if I decide not to marry (or mate) my sexual partner.