Dr. Susan Block

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25 Comments

  1. Papi
    07 · 9 · 15 @ 12:58 am

    As usual Dr Block brings it home. That’s why I love her so much.

    Reply

  2. Bruce Bartlett
    07 · 9 · 15 @ 12:56 am

    Letting a radical fetish play out is tricky business. I agree that explicit consent *always* trumps coercion or deceit. An unintegrated fetish is a dangerous beast.

    Reply

  3. Chelsea Demoiselle (Raw)
    06 · 9 · 15 @ 2:01 pm

    Meanwhile in eight states, if these ‘victims’ had been legally his spouse it would have been legal “to drug and have sex with” his subjects. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/09/marital-rape-is-semi-legal-in-8-states.html

    Reply

  4. Vinnie Spit
    02 · 8 · 15 @ 11:15 pm

    Well said. Very erudite, as usual.

    Reply

  5. Zeus Scepter
    02 · 8 · 15 @ 11:12 pm

    Dr Susan has a knack for surgically analyzing deep rooted human psycho-sexual aspects. This is the most elegant and rational explanation provided so far about the Cosby Saga.

    Reply

  6. Michael Linsner
    12 · 9 · 14 @ 1:32 pm

    Hello Dr. Block, Long time reader, first time caller? I very much enjoyed your article on Bill Cosby and somnophilia. Not necessarily because it was pleasant reading, but because it highlights the decline of personal consideration and corporal respect with the advance of capitalist notions about devaluation.

    Reply

  7. Abe Pogos
    12 · 8 · 14 @ 1:36 pm

    Dr Susan

    I very much enjoyed your article on Cosby. But it was your aside regarding false allegations of abuse that resonated in a tangential way with recent claims by Shia LeBeouf. I’m not saying he wasn’t necessarily raped. My understanding of the law where it happened is that if no consent was stated then it qualifies as rape. But I can’t feel any empathy for him for what took place. That may be a reflection of male bias on my part, or maybe my writers’ bias (the man’s a plagiarist).

    While I can accept the reality of psychic numbing that is embedded in people over time through social pressures and the power dynamics of abusive relationships that render some unable to resist unwanted sexual attention, I find his passivity in the circumstances impossible to relate to (though I suspect Lee Strasberg has a lot to answer for.)

    An article appeared recently in the Australian version of The Guardian Online that took the view

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/after-shia-lebeoufs-art-gallery-trauma-we-should-affirm-that-all-rapes-are-real-and-all-are-breaches-of-trust

    The writer concluded that “we owe a duty to all rape survivors to believe him”.

    I’m just wondering whether you’ve been tempted to weigh in on the LeBeouf saga? I suspect you’d have an interesting take on it.

    Reply

    • drsuzy
      12 · 8 · 14 @ 1:56 pm

      Thanks, Abe! I haven’t seriously followed the Shia LeBeouf controversy. Since the woman that allegedly raped him hasn’t been arrested and I’m not even sure what she did to “rape” him – stick a prop (supplied by LeBeouf’s artistic collaborators) up his exposed butthole? – I’m not inclined to “weigh in.” I do agree with the author of the Guardian piece that there are many kinds of rape, not just one kind of “real rape,” and none of them are acceptable behavior in a peaceful, sex-positive society. And yes, women can be rapists of men as well as other women, especially when using a prop on a tied-up individual. But I don’t agree that “we owe a duty to all rape survivors to believe” anyone without a little proof.

      Reply

  8. Frederick Fehrer, Ph.D.
    12 · 8 · 14 @ 12:36 pm

    One more rape victim: A former girlfriend of mine, named Jane Fazzari at the time, from 20 years ago told me of being drugged and raped by Bill Cosby around South Lake Tahoe. Jane and a girl friend of hers were invited by Bill Cosby to a nearby house where he drugged Jane’s girlfriend so she passed out and he drugged Jane to have sex with her. I remember Jane telling me she felt no pain and was walking in the snow with bare feet.

    I have no idea of where Jane is now or if she has a different, married name.

    Reply

  9. Jenelle
    12 · 8 · 14 @ 11:40 am

    I enjoy Counterpunch religiously and I thought you “mostly” nailed the Cosby article. There was just one thing missing and I think it is the true root of Cosby’s “sleep fetish” as you refer.

    Cosby is the epitome of Patriarchy esp in reference to Mary Daly’s work on the subject. He needs/needed those women to be unconscious so he could have the ultimate power over them.

    Reply

  10. Amor Hilton
    12 · 8 · 14 @ 12:35 am

    interesting mom! I am in santa barbera ugh i wish i was there last night but im working hereeee, next week will be fun!

    Reply

  11. Lynn Zorn
    12 · 6 · 14 @ 7:35 am

    Thanks always for your articles and the notice of your book.

    I wondered at the outset of yesterday’s Counterpunch piece if you’d think as I guessed that such a thing had happened to him, but you didn’t say so. Maybe because your patients have this for a fetish, but since this is abuse, as he surely might have known, isn’t there usually some childhood basis?

    Good to find your antipathy kin to mine, which derives mainly (since I didn’t watch the show or keep up with him) from his moralizing to and about black children. The vapid arrogant kneejerkiness of it was stunning. Ralph Ellison had much more sympathetically and helpfully expressed concerns (written not blown hot air) that black children mightn’t find something to practice and become good at. But now I believe these musings were precipitated by watching some kids playing basketball, and I cannot remember if that counted. I better check later, but I think he was mulling a different kind of discipline and yield. I should have checked before writing you but am seizing the moment before this day seizes me.

    Thank you again, and good luck in all,
    Lynn

    Reply

  12. Bert P
    12 · 5 · 14 @ 10:51 pm

    Great blog. I still think the Cos is a damn rapist, but this does shed light on why he may have done such terrible things. I almost feel compassion for the jerk. No doubt he should have gotten treatment. But he was surrounded by enablers.

    Reply

  13. Bo Blaze
    12 · 5 · 14 @ 3:16 pm

    Hi Susan

    I had a very similar take on this. Looks like we wrote our posts on the same day lol… great minds think alike… and all that ;)

    http://www.alternativelifecoach.com/is-bill-cosby-a-prisoner-to-his-necrophilia-or-sleeping-beauty-syndrome-somnophilia-fetish/

    Reply

    • drsuzy
      12 · 5 · 14 @ 10:03 pm

      Nice piece Bo! Someone on FB just told me about it and I was about to post a link to it here, but thanks for getting the job done for me :) Interesting how we came up with the same theory at pretty much the same time. I wonder if anyone else has. I do disagree with calling it “necrophilia,” which is a fetish for dead bodies. Somnophilia fetishizes a sleeping person, not a dead person! Nevertheless, it’s great to see you and others getting the word out about “Sleeping Beauty Syndrome,” educating people about this common but rarely discussed and difficult-to-handle fetish and encouraging communication. Kudos for that and please stay in touch!

      Reply

  14. Brandy Bonobo
    12 · 5 · 14 @ 2:46 pm

    Leave it to Dr. Block to point out the elephant snoring in the room. Excellent post!

    Reply

  15. Gerry Laytin
    12 · 5 · 14 @ 1:20 pm

    Great insight into the Cosby situation

    Reply

  16. Barbara Carrellas
    12 · 5 · 14 @ 1:08 pm

    A fascinating, well-written and highly plausible theory!

    Reply

  17. Roseline
    12 · 5 · 14 @ 12:05 am

    What goes around comes around. His sanctimonious, self is finally paying. Dr S Block fabulous analysis

    Reply

  18. Galen Fous Mtp
    12 · 4 · 14 @ 7:51 pm

    interesting psychological view into the inner myths that may have driven the covert desires of someone like Cosby…thank you Dr. Susan M Block …

    Reply

  19. Chelsea Demoiselle
    12 · 4 · 14 @ 2:14 pm

    This is cutting edge … no one else is talking about this. I love this blogpost with its meaty content. My guess is Counterpunch wants to see this.

    Reply

  20. Goddess Maya
    12 · 4 · 14 @ 1:04 pm

    Oh Mr. Cosby why couldn’t you just have kept us laughing :/

    Reply

  21. Cee Bee
    12 · 4 · 14 @ 3:09 am

    Brilliant analysis, Dr. Block. You make it seem so obvious, but isn’t it amazing that no other media or sexperts have pointed out the Cosby Sleep Fetish?

    Reply

  22. Carlo, Portofino, Italy
    12 · 3 · 14 @ 10:42 pm

    Funny, very funny and so so sad. But still it’s funny. The only article I’ve read about this kind of sexual fetish. Thanks for the insight.

    Reply

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