Tag Archive

You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘rape’ tag.

Bill Cosby’s “Spanish Fly”: Stand up or Smoking Gun?

November 19, 2014 in pop culture news | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | by | 2 comments

Bill Cosby: sex offender? Although I have a cynical streak after a few decades of reporting on sex crimes, I still am always resistant to early drum beats of a sex scandal. “Who stands to benefit?” “Is there a pattern of behavior?” “Is there a smoking gun.”

Working backwards, we start with the ironically titled 1969 comedy record, “It’s True! It’s True!” by Bill Cosby. Now that would be just darn silly if it wasn’t for the cringe-making biographical sketch titled “Spanish Fly.”

In this ninth and last comedy record for Warner Brothers, Cosby recalls being a 13-year-old boy and learning from another street kid about the mysterious Spanish fly.

“You know anything about Spanish fly?”
“No, tell me about Spanish fly.”
“Well, there’s this girl called Crazy Mary and you put some (mumble) in her drink and she goes, ‘Uh, (unintelligible freaky noises.)’
“Oh, yeah, that’s groovy. Spanish fly is really groovy,”
“And, any time you see a girl (mumbles), oh yeah, Spanish fly.”
“You see five girls standing alone — okay, if I had a whole jug of Spanish fly I’d light up that whole corner up.”

In the sketch, Cosby fast-forwards to his life as an adult star of I Spy And the
moment he hears the greatest news:

“Bob (Robert Culp) and I are working together on I Spy and Sheldon Leonard comes up to us and says ‘I Spy is going to Spain.’ “

As the audience erupts with laughter, Cosby pauses a beat and proclaims, “A childhood dream come true!”

“I say to Bob, ‘You know what I’m gonna pick up when I get to Spain?’ Bob doesn’t know anything….”
“He says, ‘Spanish fly… There’s a girl in my neighborhood in Berkeley called Crazy Mary…’

And so they plan their trip, sing variations of “Spanish fly, Spanish fly, this is the land of Spanish fly.” They sing in the airport, on the plane, through customs. Finally, in the cab, the driver is excited to meet the two Americans and before they can ask him for Spanish fly, he asks if they have any American fly.

So, is this a smoking gun or an outdated sexist comedy sketch? Is this just a terrible co-inky-dinky that so many accusations from a variety of women match the timeframe and spirit of “Spanish Fly.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Julian Assange: Criminalizing Being a Jerk

December 22, 2010 in broadcast news, pop culture news | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | by | 6 comments

Should A Man Get Away with a “No Condom” Maneuver in the Morning?

REGISTER YOUR VOTE HERE

Radical acts: always good for one's sex life

 

Long before AIDS and other awful STDs, when the only consequence of unprotected sex was getting pregnant, jerks the world over  pulled the alleged “Assange” maneuver the morning after.  With daybreak testosterone rising, a bedroomy guy who was given no choice but to wear a condom the night before, would roll over and make a “raincoat-free” move, as if all formalities had disappeared and he could kick his shoes off at the dinner table.

Now, at the close of 2010, Julian Assange is fighting extradition to Sweden after finding himself the center of a worldwide manhunt, then arrested by British authorities because two women he bedded in the same week swapped their unsafe sex stories and went to the police to demand he take a test for HIV.

The Guardian, one of the original Wikileak partners, has now leaked some of Assange’s Swedish police report.  So in addition to publishing a quarter of a million cables from 250 American embassies worldwide the paper is now reporting how Assange’s revolutionary,  possibly treasonous acts have certainly been good for his sex life. Okay, that news may not exactly stop the presses; preaching a passion for bringing world peace through radical acts has been an aphrodisiac throughout the ages.

It seems everyone is now dissecting Assange’s ego and the sex life that has grown exponentially with his Google pages.   We’ve even learned Assange had the audacity to steal the girlfriend of a known American journalist.  They apparently went outside during dinner at a restaurant, were seen holding hands and whispering, and she never returned to the hotel room she shared with her boyfriend. (Okay, so women can be jerks, too.)

But back to Assange’s police report excerpts.  The Guardian reporter wrote that Julian Assange has “a fetish” for unsafe sex.

Who doesn’t?

Read the rest of this entry »

Weathering the Storm as Heidi Jones Cries Rape

December 16, 2010 in broadcast news, pop culture news | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | by | Leave a comment

UPDATED TODAY!

CAUTIONARY TALE OF SEX, LIES AND SKEWED STATISTICS

Heidi Jones Got Some Splainin'

Just imagine, while police on Long Island were investigating the horrifying sex crimes and murders of four women whose bodies were callously dumped on a local beach,  cops in Manhattan were running around on a wild goose chase created by WABC weather gal Heidi Jones who was arrested this week on charges that made up a story about an attack and attempted rape while jogging in Central Park.

updated 12/18/10: The Daily News reports today that her bogus report of a man dragging her off a jogging train drew in detectives from across the city and a police detail assigned to her personally for security and surveillance.  They also reported that WABC also provided security.

Heidi, here’s your community service assignment: use your reporting skills to crunch the numbers and find out how many women actually  cry/lie rape or attempted rape and file false reports.  Then research why.  I’ve been reporting on rape for 30 years and I still can’t get to the bottom of this mystery. Read the rest of this entry »