While Bill Cosby has never been charged with a crime or found guilty of any of the sexual acts of which he's been accused, he made a number of unsettling statements in a 2006 deposition obtained by the New York Times that was released to the public for the first time on July 18, 2015. Thus, for the first time, we're hearing the comedian's beliefs about sex, drugs and the pursuit of women, in his own words.

These admissions aren't criminal, but they aren't exactly tasteful either. And they are completely at odds with the public persona of beloved father figure and public moralist that Mr. Cosby enjoyed in the United States for so long, even earning him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.

In the deposition, Cosby openly admits to obtaining seven prescriptions for quaaludes from a doctor in Los Angeles in the 1970s. He received the prescriptions to treat a sore back, but actually gave the pills to young women, he said.

A popular party drug at the time, Cosby said he would offer the drugs to women "the same as a person would say have a drink."

On the night when the plaintiff, Andrea Constand, claims Bill Cosby drugged and molested her, Cosby says he merely gave her one and a half tablets of Benadryl, an allergy medicine, to relieve stress. He then says that they kissed and had sexual contact. The plaintiff's lawyer insists it was a much more powerful drug.

Throughout questioning, Cosby remained unabashedly indifferent, even when the plaintiff's lawyer called him out on it.

"I think you're making light of a very serious situation," she said.

"That may very well be," Cosby responded.

According to the deposition, the plaintiff's mother once called Bill Cosby on the phone, upset about what her daughter said he had done. And worried the woman would think he was a "dirty old man," Mr. Cosby told deposing lawyers that he wished Ms. Constand would tell her mother "about the orgasm" so that she would realize their sex was consensual.

Despite having been married to his wife Camille since 1964, Bill Cosby spoke casually in the deposition about ending a relationship with one model in the name of "moving on" with other women.

He then told deposing lawyers that he occasionally wooed young women by inviting them to intimate dinners at his various houses.

He even described one such dinner at his Pennsylvania home in great detail, saying that he arranged to have Cognac, a fire, a meal prepared by his chef and dimmed lights there. Cosby then described a moment in which he led the woman out onto his back porch, so that they could be out of his chef's eyesight.

"I take her hair and I pull it back and I have her face like this," he said. "And I talked to her about relaxing, being strong. And I said to her, come in, meaning her body."

On his porch that night, Cosby said he remained just inches from the woman, but refrained from kissing her because he could sense that she didn't want him to.

Then, at the pair's very next dinner, Cosby describes having a "sexual moment," short of intercourse, adding that the woman had "a glow" about her afterward.

Mr. Cosby said he acknowledged one of his affairs to his wife in 1997, but otherwise went to great lengths to hide his philandering from her. In the deposition, he admits to blocking magazine articles on the subject and even funneling money to one woman through his agent so "Mrs. Cosby" wouldn't find out.

In the case of Andrea Constand, Cosby told deposing lawyers that his wife would probably have known he was helping the woman with her education, but would most likely not have know the reason.

"My wife would not know it was because Andrea and I had had sex," he said.

Cosby says that he believes he is a good person, who is both chivalrous and worthy of trust because he does not kiss and tell.

"I am a man, the only way you will hear about who I had sex with is from the person I had it with," he said.

In the deposition, Mr. Cosby describes having sexual rendezvous with at least five women and "romantic" interest in at least two others.

He notes, however, that he generally refrained from having intercourse with the women because he didn't want them to fall in love with him.

Sexual intercourse "is something that I feel the woman will succumb to more of a romance and more of a feeling," he said. "Not love, but it's deeper than a playful situation."

That "playful situation," it seems, is what he preferred.

Cosby boasts about having a talent for picking up the sort of nonverbal cues that signal a woman's consent.

"I think I'm a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things, whatever you want to call them," he said.

In the deposition, Cosby describes an interaction with an aspiring 19-year-old model, which began with the woman sending him a poem she had written and ended with her pleasuring him with lotion on his sofa.

During Ms. Constand's case against Bill Cosby nearly a decade ago, 13 other women came forward as well with anonymous sworn statements that they, too, had been molested by the comedian in some way.

These other women, however, never got the chance to pursue their claims in court because Cosby settled the case with Ms. Constand on undisclosed terms before they got the opportunity.

Throughout the deposition, Bill Cosby paints himself rather cavalierly as someone who uses his fame and experience to pursue women in a calculated way. In fact, he describes his relationship with the plaintiff as one of mentor and mentee, pointing out that he grew frustrated with her when she failed to follow his career advice.

"Here's a mentor, Bill Cosby, who is in the business, Bill Cosby, who happens to know something about what to do and Andrea is not picking up on it," he said.

In recent years, Cosby's fame and reputation have been colored by the allegations against him. Here, a worker cleans Cosby's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after it was reportedly vandalized with the word "rapist" multiple times, December 5, 2014.