Predator
NEWS FLASH (from the New York Times)......
In Polanski Case, ’70s Culture Collides With Today
By MICHAEL CIEPLY - October 10, 2009 - LOS ANGELES - ... Mr. Polanski was treated by the authorities, including Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, not so much as a sexual assailant but as someone ... that is, ... a normally responsible person who had shown terrible judgment by having sex with a very young, but sophisticated, girl. ...
Michael Cieply was born the same year I was, 1951. He is an entertainment industry writer and lives in that world, I apparently live in a different world. In his article in the New York Times with a dateline of Los Angeles he describes the Woody Allen movie, Manhatten, and compares the affair that the 47 year old character played by Woody Allen has with a 17 year old high school senior to Polanski's escapades. In the movie the young lady comes of legal age as she passes from 17 to 18, only later to be dumped for an older woman.
Michael goes on to indicate that this sort of thing was more acceptable in the 70s and then compares the movie to Polanski's rape of a 13 year old girl. First of all, the type of behavior in the movie is at least legal, even today. The age of consent in New York is 17, so a romantic consentual affair between a man in his forties and a girl of 17, could be considered unusual, but legal. This is not and was not the situation with Mr. Polanski.
Mr. Polanski did not have an "affair" with a teenager. He did not even "do it like a man". He had illegal sex with a little girl who had not even been a teenager for a full year. She was thirteen years old! It was also, not an affair or even something the girl desired from what has been recorded. Roman Polanski lured this girl, not once, but twice, to carry out first a mildly inappropriate photo session, then a later rape where he carried out sexual intercourse in both the girl's front and back door after giving her alcohol and at least part of a dose of the original date rape drug, the Quaalude.
Then, after making a deal in court to a watered down sentence, he did not take it like a man, he ran away to avoid prosecution. Michael, Whoopi, it was rape then and it is rape now. Based on his behavior he is a flight risk and now has another charge to face. The man is a criminal. Talented? Sure, but a criminal just the same. The only difference between today and yesterday is that today he would be put on the local pervert's list if he were living in the United States.
And, yes, this is my conservative viewpoint. So let's really consider when things were more "liberal". Then or now? As I write this Obama is on television praising gays for their political activism which is making what they do more acceptable. In the 1970s this behavior may well have been illegal! So, Michael, which is the more permissive time for "offbeat" sex? Then or now?
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