Don Lemon to Bill Cosby Accuser: Why Didn't You Just Bite His Penis?

A lot of hubbub about a gay black guy asking a straight white woman strange questions regarding her allegations of rape against a straight black guy.

"Can I ask you this -- and please, I don't mean to be crude," Lemon began, setting up his state of non-responsibility for the question to come.

"You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you don't want to do it," he said.

Tarshis, clearly surprised by the obvious implication of Lemon's coy comment, explained defensively that she was stoned at the time of the alleged incident, which she says happened when she was 19, adding "quite honestly, that didn’t even enter my mind. Now I wish it would have."

"Meaning the using of the teeth, right?" Lemon persisted, for viewers at home.

"Yes, that’s what I’m thinking you're --" Tarshis began.

"As a weapon," Lemon continued.

"I didn't even think of it," Tarshis reiterated.

"Biting," Lemon explained, for good measure.

"Ouch," she said, weakly, completing the TV tableau of a woman being asked by a TV news star on his CNN program to explain to viewers at home she had not taken this basic step to prevent her alleged attacker from raping her.

"I had to ask," Lemon said, putting back on his I'm Not Responsible, Just Doing My Job hat.

It's kind of a dumb, weird question. But that's okay; we are allowed to ask dumb, weird questions.

Or we used to be, anyway. Because of course Lemon is now getting it from the Feminist Left for the crime of How Dare You Subject Anyone Making a Serious Criminal Accusation to Any Skepticism Whatsoever.

In addition to being cravenly insensitive, Lemon's line of questioning shows a remarkable ignorance to how trauma affects people, as well as to how journalists should speak to survivors of sexual assault.

"Telling a survivor of any crime that it could have been avoided is not only disrespectful, it's offensive," Katherine Hull Fliflet, the VP of Communications for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National ​Network (RAINN), told VICE. "It's really disheartening to see an interview like this."

Meantime, people are now parodying Lemon:

posted by Ace at 12:32 PM

| Access Comments