Roman Polanski
I've been quiet on this, because I really don't know that I can comment with any degree of calm. Sometimes, the way society treats celebrity as being above the law, or even the simple moral values of right and wrong, is flat out sickening.
The fact that other celebrities, including female celebrities, are supporting him? Makes me want to shake them, makes me frankly want to boycott everything they do, and just flat out makes me sick.
There is no "kind of" rape, just like there's no "kind of" pregnant. Either it's rape, or it's not, and this was, period. And it wasn't only rape, which would have been bad enough on its own, but she was a child, and he raped and sodomized her. I don't care if he's the most amazing artistic genius since Beethoven. Serial killers often have genius level IQs, too. Does that mean we should excuse them of their crimes?
It happened 30 years ago. Oh, gee, I guess since it happened so long ago, we should just pretend it didn't happen at all! (Note the sarcasm!)
I was molested a long time ago, too. But the passage of years doesn't make it any less horrific. I still remember the shame, the belief that it was somehow my fault for far too long, even as a child. I remember sitting in a room and talking to my parents after they began to suspect something, and feeling like somehow, I was in trouble, I was the one in the wrong, even as carefully as my mother approached it.
We never saw my grandfather on my father's side after that. We'd hear, every once in awhile, about where he was or what he was doing. My father used to say that he hoped he never saw his father again, because he wasn't sure he could stop himself from killing him. I don't know to this day how my mother forgave my father, for hiding his own family history from her in the first years of their marriage. She'd had no idea, you see, that my father grew up being routinely beaten and abused, horribly, physically, mentally. Or that his sisters were also abused sexually.
I've heard about a lot of abuse cases in the years since. None comes close to the horror that my father and his siblings grew up with.
I don't blame my Dad for not telling my Mom at first. I can't imagine what it must have been like to grow up like that. I can't imagine what affect eighteen+ years of constant abuse must have had, and I can only admire him for breaking the cycle and refusing to be an abusive SOB like his father. When it came out what my grandfather had been up to with me, I don't know what was said. I just know we never saw him again. When we finally got word the old bastard had died years later, none of us mourned.
My grandfather didn't "kind of" molest me. He did. Period.
When I was 25, one of my best friends, a woman I'd shared an apartment with for three years, someone I'd been bridesmaid to at her wedding (twice!), came forward and told everyone about how her father raped her. It started when she was 4 years old. She told her mother back then, and her mother told her to stop telling lies. (I seem to recall her slapping her, as well, but I don't know for sure.) After that, she didn't tell anyone at all, until one night more than twenty years later when she freaked out on her then-husband, broke down, and ended up telling him. It was he who came over to tell me and my roommate at the time, another good friend of this woman's. We sat there and listened to him tell us how "someone" had molested and raped her repeatedly, for years, and somehow, neither of us were surprised. We looked at each other, and my roommate said very calmly, "It was her father, wasn't it?"
We knew. We, who had also been molested, somehow down in our souls, we recognized another victim. I remember thinking back to her wedding, to how her father had to hug each of us bridesmaids, and the horrible, icky feeling it gave me. Some part of me recognized what he was, even then.
We stood by her through the trial, as she finally came forward at her husband's repeated urgings, and pressed charges against her father. Yes, he'd raped her twenty years ago. But he'd also continued to do so, all the way up into her adult life. All the way up to her being married, and even after.
She still had a younger sister at home, you see, and had convinced herself that if she gave him what he wanted, he wouldn't touch her sister. She was wrong. I don't have any proof of that, since her sister refused to come forward throughout the trial, but there is no doubt in my mind, and it breaks my heart to think about it.
It doesn't matter how long ago something that horrific happened. It doesn't matter, if it had stopped when she was six, or eight, like my situation, instead of continuing into her twenties. He still deserved to be punished. Whatever else he was - pauper, prince, priest, celebrity - he was also a rapist. A molester, a rapist, and a predator.
The judge in the case gave him the maximum sentence possible. The lion's share of the abuse took place in another state years ago, and so could not be considered for the trial, and the judge expressed his personal regret and disgust that he couldn't take that history into account in sentencing.
Polanski is no different. No one "accidentally" drugs, rapes, and sodomizes a 13 year-old-girl. Running away to another country for 30 years doesn't change what he did. And it shouldn't make any difference in his punishment, unless the difference means adding time to his sentence for fleeing justice.
The fact that other celebrities, including female celebrities, are supporting him? Makes me want to shake them, makes me frankly want to boycott everything they do, and just flat out makes me sick.
There is no "kind of" rape, just like there's no "kind of" pregnant. Either it's rape, or it's not, and this was, period. And it wasn't only rape, which would have been bad enough on its own, but she was a child, and he raped and sodomized her. I don't care if he's the most amazing artistic genius since Beethoven. Serial killers often have genius level IQs, too. Does that mean we should excuse them of their crimes?
It happened 30 years ago. Oh, gee, I guess since it happened so long ago, we should just pretend it didn't happen at all! (Note the sarcasm!)
I was molested a long time ago, too. But the passage of years doesn't make it any less horrific. I still remember the shame, the belief that it was somehow my fault for far too long, even as a child. I remember sitting in a room and talking to my parents after they began to suspect something, and feeling like somehow, I was in trouble, I was the one in the wrong, even as carefully as my mother approached it.
We never saw my grandfather on my father's side after that. We'd hear, every once in awhile, about where he was or what he was doing. My father used to say that he hoped he never saw his father again, because he wasn't sure he could stop himself from killing him. I don't know to this day how my mother forgave my father, for hiding his own family history from her in the first years of their marriage. She'd had no idea, you see, that my father grew up being routinely beaten and abused, horribly, physically, mentally. Or that his sisters were also abused sexually.
I've heard about a lot of abuse cases in the years since. None comes close to the horror that my father and his siblings grew up with.
I don't blame my Dad for not telling my Mom at first. I can't imagine what it must have been like to grow up like that. I can't imagine what affect eighteen+ years of constant abuse must have had, and I can only admire him for breaking the cycle and refusing to be an abusive SOB like his father. When it came out what my grandfather had been up to with me, I don't know what was said. I just know we never saw him again. When we finally got word the old bastard had died years later, none of us mourned.
My grandfather didn't "kind of" molest me. He did. Period.
When I was 25, one of my best friends, a woman I'd shared an apartment with for three years, someone I'd been bridesmaid to at her wedding (twice!), came forward and told everyone about how her father raped her. It started when she was 4 years old. She told her mother back then, and her mother told her to stop telling lies. (I seem to recall her slapping her, as well, but I don't know for sure.) After that, she didn't tell anyone at all, until one night more than twenty years later when she freaked out on her then-husband, broke down, and ended up telling him. It was he who came over to tell me and my roommate at the time, another good friend of this woman's. We sat there and listened to him tell us how "someone" had molested and raped her repeatedly, for years, and somehow, neither of us were surprised. We looked at each other, and my roommate said very calmly, "It was her father, wasn't it?"
We knew. We, who had also been molested, somehow down in our souls, we recognized another victim. I remember thinking back to her wedding, to how her father had to hug each of us bridesmaids, and the horrible, icky feeling it gave me. Some part of me recognized what he was, even then.
We stood by her through the trial, as she finally came forward at her husband's repeated urgings, and pressed charges against her father. Yes, he'd raped her twenty years ago. But he'd also continued to do so, all the way up into her adult life. All the way up to her being married, and even after.
She still had a younger sister at home, you see, and had convinced herself that if she gave him what he wanted, he wouldn't touch her sister. She was wrong. I don't have any proof of that, since her sister refused to come forward throughout the trial, but there is no doubt in my mind, and it breaks my heart to think about it.
It doesn't matter how long ago something that horrific happened. It doesn't matter, if it had stopped when she was six, or eight, like my situation, instead of continuing into her twenties. He still deserved to be punished. Whatever else he was - pauper, prince, priest, celebrity - he was also a rapist. A molester, a rapist, and a predator.
The judge in the case gave him the maximum sentence possible. The lion's share of the abuse took place in another state years ago, and so could not be considered for the trial, and the judge expressed his personal regret and disgust that he couldn't take that history into account in sentencing.
Polanski is no different. No one "accidentally" drugs, rapes, and sodomizes a 13 year-old-girl. Running away to another country for 30 years doesn't change what he did. And it shouldn't make any difference in his punishment, unless the difference means adding time to his sentence for fleeing justice.