But it is a reckoning long delayed. And a big reason for the delay has to do with the out-of-court settlements and the nondisclosure agreements that go with them.

It was a nondisclosure agreement that turned off the spigot of accusations against the comedian and actor Bill Cosby, who was forced to grapple with women’s complaints when a former Temple University athletic department employee, Andrea Constand, accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 2005. After some dozen others made similar charges in support of her case, Mr. Cosby and Ms. Constand reached a confidential settlement.

And it was a nondisclosure agreement that brought to a close the flurry of media attention that followed the lawsuit filed against Mr. O’Reilly by the former Fox News producer Andrea Mackris in 2004. Her silence — along with agreeing to the public statement that there had been “no wrongdoing whatsoever” — went for about $9 million.

Those are only the best known examples. The entertainment news and gossip archives are filled with reports of celebrity sexual harassment cases written in disappearing ink.

Take the summer of 2010. Two women filed lawsuits accusing the actor Casey Affleck of harassment during the filming of “I’m Still Here.” Around the same time, the actress Kristina Hagan charged that the television star David Boreanaz had harassed her when she was an extra on his Fox show “Bones.” Her high-profile lawyer, Gloria Allred, went before a cluster of cameras to declare that Ms. Hagan was “looking forward to her day in court.”

But all three women struck confidential agreements resolving their cases against the men, who denied the claims against them. Mr. Affleck went on to win an Oscar, and Mr. Boreanaz is a star of the new CBS drama “SEAL Team.”

I reached out to Ms. Allred on Friday to discuss what many people were coming to view as the systemic silencing of women — a stratagem that, yes, compensates the accusers, but also enriches the lawyers who arrange the deals and, arguably, leaves other women vulnerable. Wasn’t that system, I asked, stifling a broader discussion?