The Polanski case: It’s the consent, stupid

It’s really not difficult. The Polanski case comes down to one thing: Consent.

A 13-year-old girl cannot consent to having sex with a 44-year-old man. In fact, a 13-year-old girl is not old enough to consent to having sex with a 30-year-old, a 20-year-old, a 14-year-old, or even another 13-year-old. It doesn’t matter that Polanski plied the girl with alcohol and drugs. It doesn’t matter that he claims he didn’t know how old she was.

It’s the fact that a 13-year-old child cannot consent to having sex, for the obvious reason that the child is thirteen years old.

It’s reprehensible that Whoopi Goldberg said “not necessarily” to the question “Would I want my 14-year-old daughter having sex with somebody?” The answer should be a plain, simple: No. Absolutely not.

When Anne Applebaum says that the child asked permission to be photographed in the jacuzzi, she implies that that was asking permission for whatever happened next. What happened next was rape. It frankly wouldn’t matter if the child’s mother had been right there and given explicit permission for Polanski to have sex with her daughter—the fact that the child cannot consent still applies.

There is no defense of this case whatsoever. There is no, “Yes, he did a bad thing, BUT” leading into a long-winded treatise on how the poor man has suffered all these years by not being able to come back to America, and is forced to live a life of luxury in Europe.

My heart bleeds.

It’s the consent. A thirteen-year-old child cannot consent to sex. Period.

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19 Responses to The Polanski case: It’s the consent, stupid

  1. Grantman says:

    Oh, Meryl, stop being logical. This is an artiste we are speaking of. He transcends good and bad. There are no morals in Hollywood. He is above it all since he makes movies. The silver screen…ahhhhhhh.

    /sarc off.

    I saw the list of the 100+ signatures. Some pretty amazing people have signed that. Scorsese, Allen, Demme. Well, it’s a safe bet I’ll never go to one of their movies again.

    I’m glad to read that even on the Huffington Post there are comments that condemn the attempt to whitewash this guy. Good for them. All is not dead.

  2. Lisa says:

    I really feel for the woman who now has to relive this at trial.

    What is wrong with those governments which protected him all these years?

  3. DBL says:

    Meryl,

    Statutory rape is a far less heinous offense than forcible rape. If that was all that Polanski was guilty of, there ight be some kind of argument. But that is not what happened.

    If you read the grand jury testimony, you see that he drugged and forcibly anally raped a
    13-year-old girl. He was allowed to plead to a lesser offense to spare her the agony of
    public testimony. But the actual facts of the case were relevant both to his sentence and
    to the public understanding of the case, even if he is only legally guilty of statutory rape.

  4. Shtetl G says:

    These hollywood folk really do amaze me. All they have to do to keep the adulation, veneration and money coming is not repulse their fans. But even that is too much to ask for.

  5. Dennis D says:

    Polanski’s claim that he did not know how old she was is a pathetic lie. Anyone who has seen photos of her from that time knows this. She looked 13 and not a day older.

  6. Sabba Hillel says:

    Polanski actually stated that he knew that she was 13 in his plea bargain. He should be sentenced to serve one day for every day that he evaded custody (30 years). At the end of the 30 years he can apply to have the original sentence (48 days) reduced.

  7. Elisson says:

    I’m with Sabba Hillel on this one.

    Artiste, schmartiste. Polanski could have been Albert fucking Schweitzer for all that it matters. He committed statutory rape, pled guilty, and then spent 30 years evading justice. Why he should get a pass when “regular folks” who commit similar crimes end up on registry lists and having to live far from schools and playgrounds is beyond me. He’s had 30 years to ply his filmcraft in freedom. Now it’s time to pay up. Perhaps he’ll direct the next great prison flick after “The Shawshank Redemption.”

    Whoopi Goldberg? Disgusting. Woody Allen? Here’s a guy who nailed his own stepdaughter. Revolting. Just the kind of people who ought to be testifying as to Polanski’s high moral character.

  8. JDF says:

    And she doesn’t help matters by asking that the case be dropped — what about other children — what message does that send? Hide from the law long enough and bygones are bygones? Bad enough for bank robbers and others to do that but somebody that takes advantage of a 13 year old??

  9. Jack says:

    As the father of a daughter I have no compunction saying that he won’t get what he really deserves.

  10. Sigivald says:

    Isn’t she on record in her testimony as having told him “no” repeatedly as he raped her?

    It’s not just statutory rape (which, while it’s a good and useful protection for 13 and 14 year olds does start to feel a little ridiculous on 17 year-and-350-day olds, both sets to which it applies equally) but plain old “actively against consent” rape.

    It would’ve been wrong and illegal even if she’d been saying “yes”, but since she wasn’t it’s far, far worse.

  11. John F. MacMichael says:

    Sabba Hillel at #5 makes an excellent suggestion on proper sentencing.

    Elisson at #6, I must pick a nit: you say Polanski committed statutory rape. That implies the victim was willing tho too young to give legal consent. In fact, she testified she was not willing but he used intimidation and superior strength to force himself on her. After, of course, getting her alone in his house, getting her clothes off under the pretence of a photo shoot and feeding her alcohol and drugs to weaken her resistance. Sure looks like “rape-rape” to me, contra that moral idiot Whoope Goldberg.

  12. Pamela says:

    Radical Vasectomy, Drawn and Quartered, staked out next to a fire ant hill with honey trailing back to the nest

    Maybe a month in prison as the cell-block new main squeeze….

    Where’s Dexter?

    Grrrrr

  13. Laura SF says:

    At the risk of being flamed, I think a 13 year-old CAN consent to having sex with a 14 year-old (I was deeply in love at 13 with a 14 year-old boy – thought we might even end up married – but DIDN’T want to have sex. And as a result, he broke up with me and broke my heart). BUT – I think anyone more than a couple of years older is very likely to be taking advantage of the other person’s youth & inexperience (thus, statutory rape), and in this particular case, since drugs were involved, it’s absolutely rape. Let him rot.

  14. Not flamed, Laura, but stop and read what you’re saying. You’re saying that an older person would take advantage of a 13-year-old’s youth and inexperience, but a child of the same age—with the same youth and inexperience—would not. There’s no logic to that line of thought. If you’re too young at 13 to have sex with an older person, you’re too young at 13 to have sex at all. And, uh, really—telling us that he dumped you when you refused to have sex with him? Not really making your case.

  15. Sabba Hillel says:

    Actually, we could “drop” the original charges (which would save him 48 days in prison – if the original plea bargain is left intact). BUT send him to prison for the crime of escaping custody and evading sentencing. If I recall Patterico.com correctly, the sentence for that crime is 5 – 10 years. So yes, let him go on the 48 days (as the Hollywood crowd is begging) but sentence him to the full ten years for the other crime.

    Since the victim of his original crime had nothing to do with that, she cannot “forgive” him and ask that the case be dropped.

  16. Yankev says:

    When someone forces liquor down the throat of a 13 year child, then stuffs quaaludes into her mouth, then forcibly has anal sex with her, and at all times she is telling him to please stop, the fact that she is too young for consent to be legally effective is the least of it. Yes, it’s relevant, but so is the fact that this would have been a despicable act even if she had been 20 or 40.

    Woody Allen signed the petition? The guy who saw nothing wrong with having sex with his own wife’s 17 year old adopted daughter? One paskutnyik coming to the defense of a worse paskutnyik.

  17. Yankev says:

    “If you’re too young at 13 to have sex with an older person, you’re too young at 13 to have sex at all.” Agreed, but in some states it is not a crime if the kids are close to the same age. It is not that a 13 year old boy won’t take advantage of a 13 year old girl — anyone who has been a teenage boy can tell you that. But a 13 year old boy is not expected to have the maturity of an adult, and does not have the adult’s age, experience and sophistication. If my high school days are any guide, most girls were more sophisticated than boys of the same age.

    For the same reason, a fist fight between two 13 year old boys may not be a desireable thing, but it’s on a completely different level than a 40 year old man beating the tar out of a 13 year old boy. Same bad act, but the advantage of age and development makes the second one much worse.

  18. Elisson says:

    Re #11 – John, you’re correct. What I should’ve said was that Polanski pleaded guilty to statutory rape after having committed the far more serious crime of Just Plain Rape. It just makes him that much more of a dirtbag… along with his morally equivocating defenders.

    Polanski’s acts were despicable. His avoiding justice by fleeing across the ocean is despicable. And the people that say, “let bygones be bygones” are despicable.

  19. John F. MacMichael says:

    Re #18: Yes, exactly.

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