Well, first, it’s not just “anyone.” It’s Bill Cosby, aka Clifford Huxtable and for millions a beloved and trusted “father” figure who had presented himself as a moral authority for decades. Iow, someone people trusted, admired and looked up to.
Here’s the account in regard to Constand:
Here’s more from the
NYT (emphasis mine):
The prosecutors contend Mr. Cosby used quaaludes, or some similar drug, one night in 2004 to disable Ms. Constand, a former employee of Temple University whom Mr. Cosby is charged with sexually assaulting on a couch at his home near here.
Ms. Constand testified in court earlier in the week that the pills Mr. Cosby gave her put her “underwater,” slipping in and out of consciousness and unable to prevent his sexual advances. She said she couldn’t move her arms or legs or tell him to stop.
“I was frozen,” she said. “I just wanted it to stop.”
She said he had indicated they were herbal pills.
Mr. Cosby said in his deposition that the three pills he gave her were Benadryl, though he never told her what they were, and that the sex was consensual. He said he considered Benadryl a sleeping aid, one that he frequently used himself.
So break that down for a moment. She evidently mentioned—to her trusted mentor—that she was under a lot of stress. He says something along the lines of, “I’ve got some herbal pills that will help with that” and then instead gives her either Quaaludes or Benadryl with wine.
Let’s take him at his word and say they were Benadryl, something he stated he used frequently as a sleeping aid. If you’ve ever taken Benadryl, you know it’s not just a sleeping “aid” and you also know that three pills—
with wine, no less—is a high dosage, but fine, she was highly stressed.
So where does the sex enter into any of that? She’s stressed; he gives her what he knows to be a powerful
sleeping aid. So why doesn’t he let her go to sleep?
Let’s even say that the effects of the wine and the Benadryl make her lose her inhibitions and she comes onto him. He’s twenty years her senior and supposedly a morally upstanding grown-assed married man. Why doesn’t he simply immediately recognize her reaction as being nothing more than a drug-induced aberration? He is somehow powerless to stop what is evidently a “frozen” young woman on Benadryl and wine?
But seriously, it rings strange to me that women would just accept Quaaludes (multiple ones) and NOT know it was going to knock them out.
Quaaludes—like all drugs—are not monolithic agents that always have the same results every time no matter who takes them. Depending on dosage and purity and body type/body weight—again, just as with all drugs, legal and illegal—as wells as a host of other factors (a person’s tolerance; what they had to eat or drink; their current state of general health; etc; etc) they can and do cause a varying degree of reactions.
Hell, if you’ve ever gone out drinking on an empty stomach or abstained for a day or two and then had a glass you can see how radically different your own tolerance and reactions can be. In the 70’s, Qualuudes were a regular staple in most drug user circles—certainly out in Hollywood—along with cocaine, pot and booze (and heroin).
It would not be uncommon, either, for people within those circles back in the 70’s—or today for that matter—to take whatever drug was handed them, particularly from someone seen as trustworthy/prominent/etc. It may be stupid, but it was not uncommon and most definitely is victim blaming whether you intended it or not as the malicious intent was present.
If I give you a bouquet of hemlock because I think it’s pretty and feel you deserve such a gift because you’re an amazing person that’s obviously a very different set of circumstances than if I give you the same bouquet because I plan on taking some of it when you’re not looking, brewing it into a poisonous tea that I in turn tell you is an “herbal remedy” for your headache and then watch you drink it until you fall dead on the floor, yes?
He didn't unknowingly 'spike their drink with roofies' - he OFFERED them the drugs - did they REALLY REALLY REALLY not know?
Again, it is not on them to know somebody else’s malicious intent. Yes, arguably everyone
should always approach life as if every single person they ever meet is out to murder or rape them, but that’s not generally how we navigate life. And predators like Cosby know this and clearly took full advantage of that fact.
Just look to the Constand situation. He openly admitted he was very familiar with the effects of Benadryl—noting specifically that it was something he frequently took in order to knock him unconscious (a “sleeping aid”)—but even if he had no malicious intent when first giving her the high dosage (with wine chaser), he should have immediately recognized that she was under the effect of the drugs, let alone the fact that he was a married man committing adultery.
Every step of the way proves his malicious intent, either toward his “mentee” or toward his wife at the very least.
I agree, that's not consent and sleeping with an unconscious or semi conscious person is deplorable. But that fact keeps nagging me (and not in all of his accusers, but in a couple).
Well, consider that then the next time a trusted member of your family or circle of friends or someone you have always admired and looked up to says something like, “Wait, I’ve got the perfect thing for your headache. It’s 100% herbal and I take it myself.”
