Roman Polanski arrested

[Mashinka]

I’m rather alarmed at some of the comments regarding Age of Consent: because child abuse is universal that doesn’t mean it should be tacitly accepted. A girl of thirteen looks sexually mature so she’s fair game, or so the argument goes. Well I’ve seen girls of eight or nine that have tragically suffered early onset of puberty, does that make them fair game too? Society makes these rules to afford young girls some protection from sexual predators and from the consequences, such as pregnancy, STD’s, cervical cancer and so on. Men in Britain have a particularly nauseating expression for very young attractive girls – ‘jail bait’ and it is incumbent on the law to offer vulnerable girls as much protection as is necessary to protect them during their years of childhood.

We can agree that physical maturity occurs at different ages, but what about psychological maturity? At what age does a child attain the mentality of an adult? A twelve year old with an adult body doesn’t necessarily possess an adult understanding of sexual matters. That is why a line is drawn and the age of consent exists to afford basic protection.

In the case of Polanski he chose to flout one of society’s rules concerning the protection of children, presumably thinking his fame might put him above the law. Without wishing to cast aspersions on the US legal system, it does seem that he may have some grounds for thinking that way as the later case of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal shocked us greatly here in Britain with a consensus of opinion that in America if you have enough money you can get away with murder.

Can I add that like Simon G. I was very sad that Pedro Almodóvar chose to sign that vile petition.

Also……..

Along the years stories of many of my female teen classmates having their first sexual encounters with peers AND/OR PROFESSORS, everybody consenting and very clear of what the implications were

I find that utterly, utterly appalling. The ultimate betrayal of trust.

[richard53dog]

Sometimes a young person does seduce a older person, but this was not the case

And even if it were, the adult is the one with the responsibilty to act as an adult, i.e. to act in the interest of the child.

I think this is a very important point. And what goes hand in hand with it is the concept that IT DOESN'T MATTER what the person under the legal age of consent thinks or wants, part of the CONCEPT of age of consent is the idea that the child isn't at an age where they understand the ramifications of certain actions. And so we have the idea of "statutory rape", which isn't a consideration in the Polanski case anyway, sorry Whoppi, according the the testimony of the trial it WAS "rape, rape"

And also the actions were committed is a specific time and place and the legal considerations are those that where in place there and then.

[richard53dog]

"Crime". Like abortion, alcohol consumption, segregation laws, polygamy, prostitution practice, death penalty, euthanasia, political opposition, gay marriage, end of life of brain dead patients, sodomy laws, marijuana use and many more, this are all items that at one point have been considered or not crimes depending on the historical/geographical context, the legal , political and moral/religious ruling systems where they have developed and the individuals that have been in charge of writing the law guidelines.

That's all very true but what goes along with it is that a society sets up laws based on a specific postition , whether it is something (supposedly) straitforward

such as murder or something that different segments of the population feel differently about, such as abortion. And those laws are as far as possible, lines in the sand.

It's simple, if you live under a certain legal system, you abide by the laws or you find yourself in conflict with that system. If you disagree with a law, you don't ignore it, you work to get it changed.

To simplify, what a person may THINK about a law really doesn't matter. You follow it or else work to change it.

[Helene]

This is NOT a no-brainer.

Polanski made "Knife in the Water" -- which may have been nominated for an Oscar, but also was vilified when it opened -- "most critics vociferously demanded to know what the film was about."

if you haven'[t seen it, don't judge Polanski. The rhetoric of his opponents is invariably fundamentalist. I don't buy it.

That's me.

I can't follow your context. What do you think is not a no-brainer, and how does the film figure into this? It sounds as if you're arguing that if you haven't seen his film/piece of art, you can't judge him for a crime to which he plead -- do I understand correctly?

If opposing a crime against a child by a 43-year-old adult is fundamentalism, I am a fundamentalist.

[Mashinka]

Polanski has been refused bail in Switzerland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/a...ure/8292977.stm

Very wise under the circumstances.

[leonid17]

This is NOT a no-brainer.

Polanski made "Knife in the Water" -- which may have been nominated for an Oscar, but also was vilified when it opened -- "most critics vociferously demanded to know what the film was about."

if you haven'[t seen it, don't judge Polanski. The rhetoric of his opponents is invariably fundamentalist. I don't buy it.

That's me.

I personally could not put a penny of my money into the pocket of any person who is deemed to have committed a criminal act against a child no matter what their real or perceived status may be. To do so, would to my mind, be an act of condoning.

[Hans]

If opposing a crime against a child by a 43-year-old adult is fundamentalism, I am a fundamentalist.

I'm with Helene.

Some of the students I teach are 13 year old girls. I see and work with them every day. It seems to me that sometimes adults who are not frequently around children view them more as an abstract idea than as people, but the reality is that they are children, and even if they were not, taking sexual advantage of an adult woman--yes, even a woman under the influence of drugs, even if she took them of her own free will*--is criminal, unethical, and immoral behaviour. Adults who work with children--whether as a career or only for a few hours--have a responsibility to protect them, and this is a very serious responsibility. Those who take advantage of such a position are justly dealt with harshly.

There is no need to reply directly to me as I have now said what I have to say and will no longer be reading this thread, as I find some of the arguments too disturbing.

*I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened in this case.

[dirac]

Thank you for the link, Mashinka. I couldn't get it to work, but here's another one:

The Swiss Justice Ministry has confirmed that Polanski’s own appeal to be released from prison pending his possible extradition to the United States has failed.

A spokesman for the Ministry, Folco Galli, said the Government believed the 76-year-old film director might flee even if conditions were imposed.

It must have been amusing seeing Polanski's lawyers try to argue that he wasn't a flight risk.

[Simon G]

"Crime". Like abortion, alcohol consumption, segregation laws, polygamy, prostitution practice, death penalty, euthanasia, political opposition, gay marriage, end of life of brain dead patients, sodomy laws, marijuana use and many more, this are all items that at one point have been considered or not crimes depending on the historical/geographical context, the legal , political and moral/religious ruling systems where they have developed and the individuals that have been in charge of writing the law guidelines.

Christian,

I'm sorry but I do find a great deal of what you have to say contentious for controversy's sake alone, polemical without being thought through or well reasoned and verging on ranting. But I do think this passage deserves consideration if nothing else because for me, at least, it proves how essential child protetction laws and the age of consent are.

In another post you argued that laws are made by fallible human beings and that there is no "supreme" truth; true laws are made by fallible men and women, yet then what do we do abandon all laws because they are in themselves fallible. Many laws are subject to religous mores of the time they were made and as proven in your post those laws do change as society evolves. In London for instance we can no longer boast a staunchly Christian demographic, many argue that we've lost our moral compass yet we no longer hang homeless children who steal bread - as we did 100 years ago.

And while indeed there is NO supreme truth as you say, one has to listen to the overwhelming evidence of first hand testimonies from victims of child abuse as to the extent that it has destroyed their lives, the floodtide of misery it causes.

Yes, those examples you cite are a comprehenisve list of humanities shameful history, segregation in particular being one for which there is no excuse, but more importantly it's a sign of how we evolve as a compassionate society that institutionalised and societal racism are illegal, that the bodies are there to promote inclusion and persecute race crimes - this is of course an ideal the world isn't fair or just and the notion that one can stamp out racist thought through law is specious and juvenile.

An issue very important to you gay rights is another highly contentious issue and one which is prevalent with regards to marriage and the persecution of gays throughout much of the world. I read a very provocative article by Camille Paglia, herself lesbian in which she argued, convincingly that the flip side of widespread acceptance of homosexuality within ancient cultures was synonymous with the end days, destruction and dissolution of those cultures - she wasn't saying it was against nature but was kind of a societal horseman of the apocalypse.

Another thing you argue poorly with that list is that with the exception of brain dead patients, we're talking about predominantly adult sentiments and experiences and the right of an adult to make those choices, about informed decision. The pulling of life support is an interesting one, being a cornerstone of medical ethics, cogito ergo sum, I know for myself personally I hope someone would pull the plug, though were I not to have signed a DNR in many parts of the world, I wouldn't have that right. But were I to die, to wish to die, to have several adult wives, to do drugs, to use the services of a prostitute or to prostitute myself, to marry a man or to stand for politcal representation - I would be making those choices as an adult, I wouldn't be hurting anyone and the people with whom I took those decisions and communicated my intentions to would be like minded, adults above the age of consent with enough life experience and knowledge to vote, smoke, have sex or end my life as adults.

I think you can see where I'm leading? I agree with Mashinka, that tale you told of teachers encouraging and facilitating kids' sexual experimentation is atrocious, it's an example of nothing except criminal acts of negligence and abuse of power and postition.

The idea of a universal childhood and the right of every child to that throughout the world is such a new one, barely 100 years old, significantly less in terms of the developing world and the developed world's reaction and attitude to it. But it is a hall mark of a society that is evolving towards the better that the inviolate right of a child to be so without sexual influence from an adult is treated with such rancour and censure by society.

leonid said in another post that it seems more and more incidents of sexual abuse of children are happening, I agree with that partly, I agree that more and more are being reported and actively prosecuted, it's not perhaps the number which is increasing but societies intolerance towards it.

[Quiggin]

Can I add that like Simon G. I was very sad that Pedro Almodóvar chose to sign that vile petition.

Again I can't help but wonder what combination of things people were thinking when they signed the petition. Nadine Marquand, whose daughter's was killed by a popular singer, who got off to her dismay with a light sentence, signed it. It may have had something to do with another case of the US overreaching or cynicism about the Swiss protecting swindlers' bank accounts. So maybe we should withold judgment a bit on this. -- And again if we stop seeing and discussing their movies here on Ballet Talk, it's going to be pretty slim pickings movie-wise from now on. (Hopefully Claire Denis did not sign -- 35 Shots of Rum is well worth seeing!)

[bart]

There's an interesting article on the Extradition question in general in this week's Economist.

http://www.economist.com/world/internation...ory_id=14540061

Starting with:

IT IS a fair bet that if a humble Polish immigrant called, say, Pawel Romanski had skipped bail after pleading guilty to raping a 13-year-old in Los Angeles 30 years ago, fleeing to France would have done him little good, and his fate, however unfair, would never have become a cause célèbre. Most of the time, international extradition is a boring business involving a lot of dull form-filling, after which wrongdoers are taken back to face justice.

The article gives a brief survey of the extradition situation internationally, and lists three "flaws" in extradition as currently practiced.

The biggest flaw in extradition is not politics, however, but the treatment of those who lack Mr Polanski’s wealth and connections. As extradition becomes speedier and procedures tighter, the risk of miscarriages of justice rises, and in a way that the humble and innocent may find difficult to resist [ ... ]

A second concern is deeds that count as crimes in one country but not another. [ ... ]

The third worry is that rules on legal aid, interpreting, bail and the like vary widely between countries. That makes gaining justice in a foreign court dauntingly difficult. [ ... ]

I did not know, for instance, that Greece has a very short statute of limitations in these situations and often refuses to extradite after only a few years. Or that Israel, France, and Russia generally -- with few exceptions -- refuse on principal to extradite their own citizens. The U.S., relying on the 4th Amendment, makes it tougher for other countries to extradite FROM the United States than what we demand from other countries.

It seems that every country, including the U.S., has reasonable as well as spurious reasons for preferring to conduct extradition in its own way.

[dirac]

I would suspect that reflexive anti-Americanism entered into the matter as well for some Europeans and as noted earlier petition signers are not always that attentive to what they're signing. In this case let's hope they weren't parsing too closely.

Boycotting is a dangerous tactic, but it's a risk that entertainment folk take, for good and ill. I doubt that there will be any boycotting here although Polanski's new thriller is now in jeopardy, I'd say. The world is probably not losing a masterpiece if it winds up on the shelf.

Thank you for the link, bart. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that the US line on extradition tends to be Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do. I hope they can deal with Polanski in Switzerland and it never comes to that.

[Quiggin]

Camille Paglia, herself lesbian in which she argued, convincingly that the flip side of widespread acceptance of homosexuality within ancient cultures was synonymous with the end days, destruction and dissolution of those cultures - she wasn't saying it was against nature but was kind of a societal horseman of the apocalypse.

Simon, Camille Paglia is so nutty and unscholarly and uncitable and the least good part of your argument. Homosexuality is a part of human nature -- a constructive one -- and has run through history like Prokofiev says like a red thread of a minor key through a Beethoven symphony. There is no love poetry in all of ancient Greece that is not same sex driven, check out Mary Beard at the TLS or K J Dover. Only in the late Hellenistic novels does heterosexuality come in the picture, so you could argue the opposite.

The case Cristian cited is not so different than what happened when I was a child at Young Mens Christian Association camps in the Sequoias in the part of California known as the Bible Belt. Young people, same age, older and younger, had their crushes and meaningful and trivial romances under the big trees and stars and then went back to real life and school and it was all part of growing up. Didn't Margaret Mead cover this ground years ago?

But eros and youth has nothing to do with the Polanski case.

[Simon G]

Hi Quiggan,

Sorry, I just reread my post and realised I didn't finish off that paragraph, (the perils of long posts, one loses one's train of thought) i was going to go on to criticise Paglia and discuss how philosophy about such abstruse and complex subjects is damaging etc

[richard53dog]

The case Cristian cited is not so different than what happened when I was a child at Young Mens Christian Association camps in the Sequoias in the part of California known as the Bible Belt. Young people, same age, older and younger, had their crushes and meaningful and trivial romances under the big trees and stars and then went back to real life and school and it was all part of growing up. Didn't Margaret Mead cover this ground years ago?

Do you mean some of this YMCA activity was with adults? Counselors, teachers and such?

"Crushes" are one thing and romances and all their variations between teens are another. I would agree both those are part of growing up.

But serious teen-adult romances, with or without physical activity seem pretty much beyond the pale.

[dirac]

But eros and youth has nothing to do with the Polanski case.

Indeed. We're not talking about what young people may or may not do together, but about older people messing with youngsters, male or female, and specifically what one older man did with one thirteen year old girl. And may I suggest to everyone that this aspect of the discussion has gone on long enough.

Richard, I was posting at the same time as you, so I didn't see your post before putting it up. Quiggin should feel free to respond to your question about counselors as he wishes, of course.

Edited October 6, 2009 by dirac

[Quiggin]

Do you mean some of this YMCA activity was with adults? Counselors, teachers and such?

Two or three year differences at most. And this all seems to have been happened in a much more naive and trusting time ... But I didn't intend to sidetrack the discussion and agree that we should return to the ongoing developments of this case.

[leonid17]

Living in England, I found it interesting to read that the law on rape dating back in some states from the 17th century was only changed in 2008 when the U.S. Supreme Court banned the penalty of death for people convicted of raping a child.

The opinion makes it clear that the court believes the death penalty is appropriate only in cases where the crime results in death.

This ruling overturns laws in six states that allowed the death penalty for the rape of a child and as a result commuted the death sentences of two men on death row in Louisiana to life in prison.

[cubanmiamiboy]

I'm sorry but I do find a great deal of what you have to say contentious for controversy's sake alone, polemical without being thought through or well reasoned and verging on ranting.

Simon, the list was generated with the simple purpose of pointing at issues that have been categorized as "legal" by the American society at one point, some of them now being considered "crimes". Nothing else. My intention was not to argue pro or against each one of them. Yes, they are sensitive things, polemical by nature and subject of controversy-(I would say ALL of them still are), which definitely is not the purpose of this thread. I DID think about each of them well through when I cited them, but again, I would not get more into them, as the world-(and America)-has done it for quite a time. Thousands of books by smarter people than me are written on the subject, so I didn't feel the need to keep digging deeper.

I, again, DO consider Polanski's actions as wrong as the most of the people-(mainly because so far the major wight of evidence points at forceful actions done on a person way lower on age than what I think should be the consent number)

[dirac]

One last clarification, Quiggin. Aside from the age difference, were they counselors or teachers? It sounds as if the older parties were. (The distinction does matter in such a situation.)

[Estelle]

There's an interesting article on the Extradition question in general in this week's Economist.

http://www.economist.com/world/internation...ory_id=14540061

Thanks for that link, bart, it's very interesting. I didn't know until a few days ago that France doesn't extradite its citizens. Actually, I wonder what would happen if a French citizen committed for example a murder in another country and then fled to France...

One things that really annoys me in some of the articles published in France about the Polanski affair include a lot of inaccuracies about the US judicial system... For example, I recently came across an article, supporting Polanski and comparing his present situation to that of Oscar Wilde ( ), which included things such as "he should be considered innocent until proven guilty", which are really inaccurate considering that he did plead guilty... The French and US laws are very different (for example, pleading guilty didn't exist in France until 2004, and is limited to offences or crimes punished by a fine or by less than 5 years of jail, also I think the prescription/ statute of limitation systems are quite different). But journalists should at least make some effort to get properly informed...

[dirac]

On second thought, you don't need to answer that question, Quiggin. I shouldn't have put it up. Thanks.

I'm inclined to agree with you, Estelle. Polanski is not the root of all evil, but he's not a martyr to sexual prudery and a law enforcement system gone wild, either.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Besides-(and this is the last thing I say about this "consent age" sub-topic)-...why do we keep closing our eyes at reality...? My story was long ago, yes, in another country with a lower consent age, yes, and Quiggin's one relates to a past time also, but...do we really think this is not happening anymore...?!

Well...I just wish you guys could listen to my mom's stories-(she's a junior high teacher in one of the centers belonging to a huge private schools chain here in Miami)-of what she hears and see in her school...They make my story and Quiggin story look like fairytales...seriously.

[E Johnson]

[

One things that really annoys me in some of the articles published in France about the Polanski affair include a lot of inaccuracies about the US judicial system... For example, I recently came across an article, supporting Polanski and comparing his present situation to that of Oscar Wilde ( ), which included things such as "he should be considered innocent until proven guilty", which are really inaccurate considering that he did plead guilty... The French and US laws are very different (for example, pleading guilty didn't exist in France until 2004, and is limited to offences or crimes punished by a fine or by less than 5 years of jail, also I think the prescription/ statute of limitation systems are quite different). But journalists should at least make some effort to get properly informed...

Oh, yes. as a person who practices criminal law and deals with the press, i am constantly amazed by how ill-informed most reporting on the process is. When you are dealing with a different country's system, its even worse.

But many of the American commentators are similarly off base - they ignore the conviction, and they act like polanski is the first person to have a court possibly renege on a plea deal, and the first fugitive that was arrested. The fact is that the US legal system does provide redress when a judge doesn't accept a plea agreement, but you don't get relief if you are a fugitive. (and,i might add, if the judge hasn't actually done anything yet). its not singling out polanski to apply the law to him as it is applied all the time, just usually not to such high profile individuals.

[dirac]

Besides-(and this is the last thing I say about this "consent age" sub-topic)-...why do we keep closing our eyes at reality...? My story was long ago, yes, in another country with a lower consent age, yes, and Quiggin's one relates to a past time also, but...do we really think this is not happening anymore...?!

Thank you, cubanmiamiboy. I would suggest as a last word that child protection laws are an acknowledgment of reality, not a denial of it. I do see what you mean, however.

The fact is that the US legal system does provide redress when a judge doesn't accept a plea agreement, but you don't get relief if you are a fugitive.

The prosecutors and the court have in fact made conciliatory noises before. The most recent judge to opine on the matter made it about as clear as he could that Polanski would get a fair, even sympathetic, hearing -- but he had to appear. Polanski and his attorneys chose a different, more confrontational path.