Don Lemon: CNN Host Asks Joan Tarshis Why She Didn’t Bite Bill Cosby’s Penis To Avoid Alleged Rape

Don Lemon, a CNN host, asked alleged Bill Cosby rape victim Joan Tarshis why she didn’t use her teeth to avoid forced oral sex during the assault she claims happened 45 years ago.

Joan Tarshis claims that Bill Cosby “drugged and raped her” when she was a 19-year-old model. During a recent CNN interview Don Lemon told Tarshis that there were ways to avoid sexual assault. Lemon asked, “You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it. Meaning the using of the teeth, right? I had to ask.” The woman answered “yes” and then Lemon kept pushing the point by referencing the fact that she could have used “biting to avoid the alleged forced oral sex with Bill Cosby. To which Joan Tarshis replied, “ouch.”

Twitter rage over the Don Lemon comments which appeared to some as blaming the victims of rape if they did not fight back hard enough, was swift and the CNN’s host’s name was quickly trending on the social media platform.

Bill Cosby’s alleged rape victim said, “I was kind of stoned at the time and quite honestly, that didn’t even enter my mind. Now I wish it would have.” Joan Tarshis told the Daily Mail that she has suffered years of “misplaced guilt” following her alleged rape by Bill Cosby. The former model claims that the television star and comedian sexually assaulted her twice in 1969.

“‘It’s like having an upset stomach that will never go away. Victim guilt is very common. I suffered from it. I felt guilty. I felt that I should have known better – that I should have picked up something instinctively that there was something wrong with this man. But I didn’t. He has a good act,” Tarshis added.

Tarshis is the third woman to accuse Bill Cosby of rape. Former model Janice Dickinson claims that Cosby invited her to his home in order to discuss a potential television role and drugged and raped her. Dickinson is claiming that she was offered a glass of wine with a pill that she thought was to help with cramps she was having, presumably menstrual. Being handed the wine and the pill were allegedly among the last things she can remember about the evening spent at the Cosby home.

“The next morning I woke up and I wasn’t wearing my pajamas and I remember before I passed out that I had been sexually assaulted by this man. I remember waking up with my pajamas off and there was semen between my legs,” Janice Dickinson said. The former model maintains that she does recall Bill Cosby taking off his robe and getting on top of her. She contends that the next morning she was in “a lot of pain.” The alleged Bill Cosby rape occurred at Lake Tahoe, California in 1982. Last month Barbara Bowman also charged the television star of rape.

What do you think about Don Lemon asking Joan Tarshis why she did not bit the penis of Bill Cosby in order to prevent the alleged rape?

[Image via: Twitter]