Bill Cosby’s sexual abuse case ended in mistrial last weekend. Apparently, two jurors were holdouts, because some people just can’t wrap their heads around actual consent, and how if you drug a woman into submission, that is not the same thing as consent. The whole thing is pretty awful and I would have thought that Bill Cosby would just go home and wait quietly for the retrial (which the DA says will happen). But Cosby will be going back to work, according to his lawyer. What work? Well, he’s going to tour the country with a series of “town hall meetings” to educate people about “sexual violence.” No, really.

Less than one week after a judge declared Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case a mistrial, the embattled actor-comedian is gearing up to “get back to work.” On Thursday, Cosby’s rep, Andrew Wyatt, told Good Day Alabama host Janice Rogers that the actor is planning to hold a series of town hall meetings starting “sometime in July” to help educate young men and women about sexual violence – specifically, the threat of being accused of inappropriate behavior.

“This is bigger than Bill Cosby,” Wyatt said on the show. “This issue can affect any young person, especially young athletes, of today, and they need to know what they’re facing when they’re hanging out and partying, when they’re doing certain things they shouldn’t be doing. And it also affects married men.”

Wyatt’s reference to married men is a nod to the primary argument made by Cosby’s defense attorney Brian McMonagle, that Cosby was a man who had been unfaithful to his wife, but not a perpetrator of sexual assault, as accuser Andrea Constand had testified. Added Ebonee Benson, a spokeswoman for Camille Cosby, “Laws are changing, the statute of limitations for victims of sexual assault are being extended, so this is why people need to be educated on … a brush against the shoulder. Anything at this point can be considered sexual assault. It’s a good thing to be educated about the laws.”

[From Rolling Stone]

Some people don’t believe “rape culture” is a thing. Please don’t be one of those people. This is rape culture. When a man who has admitted to drugging and sexually assaulting women considers himself a sexual assault educator, that is rape culture. When Rolling Stone contacted Cosby’s lawyer to clarify some of the topics of Cosby’s speeches, he said: “Laws are changing. Statute of limitations are being amended. It’s important to educate people that you could be at a baseball game and it could be crowded and a young man could try to squeeze through and accidentally touch a young lady’s butt or breast by mistake and that could be considered sexual assault. It’s imperative that we educate people that want to be educated.” I have no words. Way to minimize and normalize what Cosby actually did and what he’s been accused of.

Photos courtesy of BACKGRID and Getty.