while I do feel the women have a right to pursue whatever legal charges at their disposal, I must say, I do think some personal accountability is/was in order. A mutual exploitation was in play. Clearly these women were in it for whatever they could get off BC. Money, Celebrity Dust... whatever.. Those free drinks, drugs, dinner ect... We not really "free", or given because of a pretty smile and a nice personality. An exchange was taking place. Even if you're not too terribly street wise, most adults know this. Heck in the seventies there was a popular bumper sticker that perfectly exemplified such mutual exploitation: Cash, Grass or @ss. Nobody rides for free!" Grownups know this. They just do. (I miss the seventies. People were more honest back-in-the-day).
You mean you miss the 70s with the Vietnam War, the Kent State massacre, the repercussions of MLK's assassination, Watergate, few career options for women (poor childcare options playing a part in this), prospective employers being allowed to ask questions regarding an applicant's sex life, less economic power for women (until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974, women were not able to apply for credit), high unemployment, rampant inflation, a time when homosexuality was listed as a form of insanity in the DSM, and extreme prejudice was considered the norm?
There are good and bad aspects of every period of human existence, IMO, no matter what the decade or epoch. People may place their trust in those who do not deserve it. People may lie in order to get what they want. People may agree to sexual activity for some benefits. People may expect sexual activity to bestow benefits. People may also believe that the benefit on offer is not worth the emotional and physical price of sexual activity and decline. People may or may not accept the rejection of the offer with good grace. Forcing sexual interaction if not mutually beneficial. IMO, mutually beneficial if very different than what happens when sexual activity is forced. Forced sexual interaction is, IMO, an assault upon someone's body, mind and spirit.
The victim of an assault deserves support, and help to heal. Often, in an effort to deny that such a horrible experience could ever happen to them, people who are outside of the assault assign guilt not to the perpetrator (who could fight back and accuse them of slander) but to the person least likely to hurt them--the victim. Saying that the victim is at fault for showing up for a business meeting, or believing that someone would invite them for dinner because they were worth spending time with, is simply a way of ego building.
Saying a victim is more responsible for an assault than the person committing the violence, is, IMO, an attempt to give the perpetrator a pass. Blaming the victim is just another way of saying that the perpetrator had every right to lie, to attack, to objectify, to vilify, to belittle, to demean, to devalue, to brutalize, to gloat, to scar, to sneer, to destroy. There is a reason that rape is considered torture and a war crime. When there is lack of consent to sexual activity, the perpetrator is a rapist. However the victim came to be alone with the perp, whether as part of her work as a maid in Victorian household, or as part of his mentoring program as an altar boy in medieval France or 70's Boston, part of his/her secretarial work, part of what might turn from a social meeting into a romantic relationship it does not make the rapist any less a rapist.
In fact, telling a woman you are giving them vitamins or cold medicine while actually giving her a drug which will temporarily paralyze her is a very dangerous, psychopathic thing to do. Saying thanks for the headache medicine is not the same thing as saying sure I'll just lie there and you can do whatever perverted thing you want to do.
I take real exception to your minimalizing BC's predatory patterns with the term "mutual exploitation". What BC was engaged in wasn't "free love", or a "casting couch" exchange of sex for possible professional advancement (examples of which may be found in every profession). Some of BC's alleged victims would have consented to engaging in sexual activities with him. That, however, was not what BC seems to have been after, IMO, if the alleged stories are true. Instead, it appears that he did not ask for consent. That he did not want consent. That, in his superior economic and social position, he did not need their consent. There was nothing consensual about any of these stories. There was nothing mutual about a rapist showing his contempt for his victims by using their bodies in the manner of his choosing, at his convenience, and then discarding them with no concern for them.
However, that cute little slogan "Cash, Grass or @ss. Nobody rides for free!" works both ways.
Now is the time when BC has to pay for the ride.
