Cosby: "Trust Me." (trigger warning) [View all]

[YoungDemCA]

This story appeared in the Huffington Post a few days ago and was posted in General Discussion, but I thought that HOF deserved a thread of its own. After all, this IS a "safe haven" subforum.

One night we were going out to a movie. We agreed to meet at an apartment that he said belonged to a friend of his. I had a terrible headache but didn't want to cancel the evening. He told me he had a miracle cure his doctor had given him that would get rid of the headache. He went into another room and came back with a capsule. I asked a couple of times what it was. Each time he reassured me, asking, "Don't you trust me?" Of course I did. This was Bill Cosby.

For more than 45 years I have tried to recall exactly what happened that night. To this day it remains a blur. I have a vague recollection of feeling like I was floating while walking through Times Square and watching some kind of Japanese samurai movie with him. I don't remember where the theater was nor very much of the evening.

What I do recall, vividly and clearly, is waking up the next morning nude in the bed of his friend's apartment and seeing Cosby wearing a white terrycloth bathrobe and acting as if there was nothing unusual. It was obvious to me that he had had sex with me. I was horrified, embarrassed and ashamed. There was a mirror above the bed, which shocked me further.

snip:

So why speak out at all and why now? The simple answer is that it's the right thing to do. The truth deserves to be known. As I write this, more than 20 women have come forward, many with stories that are remarkably similar to mine. In response to these brave women, I have read comments like, "What took them so long?" and "What are they after now"? I would ask these people to remember that up until relatively recently, prosecuting rape was a "he said/she said" proposition where the victim was blamed for having worn "suggestive clothing" or questioned as to why she went somewhere with her rapist.

When this happened to me, the idea of drugging someone and raping them was almost fantastical. It was years before "date rape" drugs made the news, but it was a perfect modus operandi for a predator, rendering his victim unconscious or so incapacitated as to be unable to clearly answer police questions about the incident. After having done a lot of work on myself, I realize that we are only as sick as the secrets we keep. Once those secrets are spoken aloud, even if to just one person, they lose their power. I no longer feel the shame that kept me silent. Yes, I could have told my story years ago, and in hindsight I probably should have. It's time now that my voice be added and to finally pull the curtain back from this dark moment in my life.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindra-ladd/bill-cosby-trust-me_b_6526064.html