A Brief History of Misogyny in the GOP Universe

Rape, and a Little Reality

So, another sad example of male privilege and victim-blaming came to light last week, when Canadian teen Rehtaeh Parsons hanged herself after the RCMP decided that it didn't have enough to act on, and closed the case. Despite one of the four boys having circulated evidence of him committing the crime (which also constitutes child pornography, incidentally). Despite the fact that it took hacker group Anonymous about two hours to find the names of the four boys involved.

Backed against a wall, the RCMP agreed to reopen the case. So, bravo, Anonymous.

This case is remarkably similar to the Steubenville, Ohio rape case, in which two teens took advantage of a drunk underage girl to abuse her when she couldn't fight back. In both cases, the victim was blamed for being a slut, when they were both unconscious (or all but) at the time. In both cases, the police tried to cover it up, and members of Anonymous wouldn't let them.

The Far Right (and some other idiots) practically dryhumped the Steubenville story, trying to empathize with the rapists and saying it was the victim's fault (because, after all, all men rape - they can't help themselves, right?).

Easily the weirdest reaction, though, came from a libertarian college professor, who put it this way:

Let’s suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm — no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I’ve read, was not even aware that she’d been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?...

As long as I’m safely unconscious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn’t the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits?

Now, I'm not going to try to refute his argument directly (if you aren't sociopathic, the answer should be obvious). What I'm going to point out is this:

A. Following that logic out to its obvious conclusion, there is no private possession of any item. This is more extensive than anything ever suggested by any follower of communism or socialism.

By this reasoning, nobody should ever be allowed to take their keys with them after they drive to work; while you're in your office, other people should be allowed to use your car. After all, if they refill the gas and return it before you leave for the day, there's no problem, right?

Nor can you lock your door: people should be allowed to have parties in your house while you aren't there, shouldn't they? As long as they clean up after themselves, no harm, no foul, right?

(Let's just pretend that there's no such thing as "depreciation" in the tax code: these are his thought experiments, not mine.)

B. Would you like to guess why the Right Wing is losing the idiotically-named "War on Women"? It's fascinating how this argument joins up with the abortion question: it's all the same. Dr Landsburg doesn't expand on his rape-apology in the way that I just did, because that's where it breaks down. In his view, not only is a woman's body just property (and not property that she controls, by the way), but it isn't even as important as his house, or his car. She's just there to be used by other people.

This is why the Right Wing is roughly as popular as chlamydia in most polls.

Defending the Faith

I hesitate to write about this, since everyone and his horse will undoubtedly pick up on the latest Republican hilarity.  It's an easy target, but it says so much about what the Republican party has been party to: the degradation of truth, logic, decency and freedom.  Yes, we have another Republican telling us that women probably can't get pregnant from being raped.

Denial, as I've been saying ad nauseam, is the flip side of belief and every belief requires a denial.  Denial of what you know to be true, is hypocrisy and to avoid hypocrisy, too many Republicans will defend what they know to be false and tell themselves it's heroic; tell themselves that lies are not lies if they're useful in defending the faith. Some of what one needs to defend in order to gain party support is immoral, indecent, mean-spirited and nasty too. Much of it is just a series of damned lies, but that's another story. 

There's just no truth to the idea that God or biology protect a rape victim from pregnancy but the creed demands that one oppose terminating a pregnancy, whether unwanted or repellant or dangerous, so you -- forgive my technical jargon -- have to make shit up in order to defend the belief and deny the truth, be it incontrovertible truth about evolution, cosmology, geology, economics, law, mathematics or history. In many cases, being a Republican requires that you park not only your brains, but your honesty, your decency in the alley behind the GOP bar next to the dumpster, lest any of the clergy see it.

I won't deny that I take a certain satisfaction in presenting this one small, relatively unimportant demonstration of the mental processes that produce and direct the American Opera Buffo.  I delight in airing their dirty laundry, not because I like the rancid smell of batshit, but because it's time to burn it and bury the ashes.  It has been time forever.  

Carry his rape-baby or go to jail.

One of the reasons that the Republicans couldn't win the election in 2012 was that they were continuing to appeal only to the white male demographic.

They didn't bother worrying about hispanic vote: look at their reaction to the Dream Act. Or their "walls, razor wire and armed guards" view of immigration policy. Or the continued push toward "English-only" legislation.

They didn't give a tanned damn about the black vote: check out their full-throated support of George Zimmerman, who apparently felt threatened by the existence of skinny teenagers armed with Skittles. For that matter, note the dog-whistles (and occasional open racism) distributed through their attacks on our first black president.

And going into the home stretch of the election, the GOP seemed to double down on their "War on Women," with lawmakers talking about "legitimate rape" and trying to make it harder for a woman to get a legal medical procedure, than it is for a convicted felon to buy military-grade hardware.

Full disclosure: I am not a big fan of the term "War on Women," but I'm at a loss what else to call it. The opposite of "Women's Lib" would be "Women's Enslavement," but that's a bit hyperbolic, so I'm not going to even touch it. In fact, "War on Anything" is pretty well over-used, because they can be such a convenient shorthand. Will some linguistics major please look into this for me?

In regards to the GOP policy toward women, they have a radical portion of their party who keeps trying to turn back the clock to a mythical Fifties, where the blacks and hispanics were all happy in their low-paying jobs, and the few women in the work force (the ones who weren't staying at home baking) were available to be chased around the desk playing hard-but-not-impossible-to-get.

See, in their views, a Woman's Purpose (subtitle: "Assigned To Her By God") is to be forever in a subservient role, helping Her Man, cleaning, cooking, and procreating. If she gets a job, she's still expected to get home in time to get the kids from daycare and cook dinner. And this is pretty obvious by how they try to legislate.

Hell, at least blacks were considered three-fifths of a person. In some quarters, women are lucky to get that much appreciation today, especially in in the paycheck.

(And I'm not saying that the melanin-enhanced peoples have it much better; I'm just trying to make a rhetorical point here...)

And one of the things they want to avoid is even the possibility that a woman will have control of her own genitals.

Simple logic and actual scientific studies have shown that adequate sex education and access to contraception both decrease abortions (and we even have the actual examples of places like Denmark, where abortion is available, but almost unheard of), but we still have the insane cognitive dissonance of opposition to abortion, and contraception, matched up with support for abstinence-only education.

Which brings us to my own (adopted) state of New Mexico.

Now, I'll admit that I have little or no use for Huffington Post. There are a number of reasons for this, but I'm going to give them credit for one thing: they were the first news outlet to break this one.

A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."

Now, since Huffpo broke the story, it's been picked up by other news groups, and the public outcry against this brain-meltingly obvious idiocy has made Representative Brown very sad. She's now trying to explain to everybody how she was being "misrepresented."

Rep. Cathrynn Brown, a Republican from Carlsbad, said Thursday she will revise the bill, which she said was intended to target perpetrators of rape or incest who try to cover their tracks by forcing their victims to have abortions...

Although the clause regarding intent would seem to preclude rape victims from being charged, several critics read the bill as possibly including them. Brown said she will clarify the language to remove any ambiguity.

Yeah, but while that may be the way she tried to sell it (and I'll give a tip of my hat to Ted for pointing it out to me)... well, in her defense, she's an idiot. Just how often, exactly, does a rapist drag a woman to a doctor to abort his rape-baby?

Because, yeah, the way she was selling this to her friends and supporters probably sounded just like that. The version on her own website has been undergoing daily changes since it went up, but has been warm and friendly to the poor beleaguered victim since day one. But the one that was introduced to the state legislature had some... well, let's just call them "inconsistencies" from the story Ms Brown has been trying to sell.

See, here's how it was presented:

AN ACT

RELATING TO CRIMINAL LAW; SPECIFYING PROCURING OF AN ABORTION AS TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE IN CASES OF CRIMINAL SEXUAL PENETRATION OR INCEST.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

SECTION 1. Section 30-22-5 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1963, Chapter 303, Section 22-5, as amended) is amended to read:

"30-22-5. TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE.--

A. Tampering with evidence consists of destroying, changing, hiding, placing or fabricating any physical evidence with intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person or to throw suspicion of the commission of a crime upon another.

B. Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.

C. Whoever commits tampering with evidence shall be punished as follows:

It then goes on to explain, if you're curious, what crimes will be added (or applied) to everybody involved, with no question about who it is (the rapist, the victim, or the doctor). And that's it. Short, sweet and stupid.

So, if you get raped, and then you get an abortion, you go to jail. It's a simple equation.

"Ah," but the calm, rational side of you explains, "it's right there in the bill! You have to have 'the intent to prevent the apprehension' of the rapist! Obviously, a victim isn't going to do that, right?"

Well, aside from the fact that "calm" and "rational" can rarely be applied to the anti-abortion lobby, let's consider for a minute. There's a term that needs to be applied here: "Thought crime." It's illegal to get an abortion that might tamper with evidence. Unless you can prove that you hadn't intended to tamper with evidence. You have to prove what you'd been thinking about.

"But... but... but..." your calm, rational side sputters, not yet willing to give up. "That isn't true! The state has to prove that you were planning to tamper with evidence!"

No, afraid not. The state has to prove that you did tamper with evidence, and then show that you might have still harbored feelings for the rapist. (Not hard to do, if it's, say, your dad, or some guy you haven't actively attacked with a knife...) After all, you got the abortion. They can prove that happened.

A woman still gets blamed for getting raped if she dresses "too provocatively" or goes to the wrong part of town. We tell women how to avoid getting raped; we don't tell men "don't rape."

We just assume that the natural state of man is "rapist." Since he's going to try to have sex regardless of any other factors, it's her job to avoid getting in that position.

If you then factor in the concept of "Stockholm Syndrome," please try to explain where this won't go wrong. Women already get accused of fabricating rape charges because they had sex, but then had "second thoughts" the next day.

Our society has some seriously messed-up priorities when it comes to rape.

_____________

Update (1/28/2013): So, I just corrected the formatting in the text of the bill. I tried to show it the way it was presented on the legislative website (with paragraph B underlined and the rest of it) and just managed to make it invisible. So now it's just shown as text, because some people shouldn't be allowed to use HTML.

...As if one dries/The streams from off my face.

Almost a year ago, a young woman named Savannah Dietrich (now 17) went to a party, drank too much, and passed out. That's not, perhaps, the smartest behavior, but it's not something she should have to pay for the rest of her life.

While she was unconscious, two other teenagers, Austin Zehnder and Will Frey, raped her, took pictures, and emailed them to friends. That's a crime, and should be punished.

But the boys struck a plea deal last month, pleading guilty to felony sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism. Their sentencing hearing is scheduled for next month. But one other legal action was taken: Ms Dietrich was hit with a gag order, telling her that she couldn't talk to the press or reveal the names of her attackers.

The punishment for that could be six months in jail (not 100 days, as the video below claims) and a $500 fine, probably more than the boys would have received: juveniles tend to recieve lighter sentences, and their names aren't released to the public - apparently in the theory that they never learned that rape is wrong.

But Ms Dietrich decided to fight back. She tweeted their names to everyone she knew and opened her Facebook page to the public; she followed the court order to the point that she never revealed what the proposed sentencing was, but said that it was "a slap on the wrist."

Thanks in part to the public outcry, charges against Savannah Dietrich have been dropped. The judge has managed to muzzle the press, though, so while we know the name of Savannah Dietrich, the names of her attackers, Austin Zehnder and Will Frey, are nowhere to be found on the mainstream media. What the judge hasn't been able to control, though, is the internet.



It doesn't take much to google their names, where you can discover that they play lacrosse for a community team. You even get to see what these two douches look like.

Frey
Zehnder

There are some stories that need to be told. Over and over again. Until society stops trying to blame the victim.

Virginia, the Rape Me State

Sic Semper Tyrannus is the motto of the State of Virginia, but as with any matters involving Republicans, a government is not a tyranny if it subjugates individual liberty to the prejudices and perverted morals of the Religious Right. I read over at The Impolitic that Virginia passed a law last week forcing any woman seeking a legal abortion to have an ultrasound examination. For those who don't know, this means that for a pregnancy in the first trimester, she must, by law, have a probe inserted into her vagina and maneuvered around by a technician until an ultrasound image satisfactory to the state is produced. As Libby points out, without that state mandate, this meets a general description of rape.

It doesn't take much to imagine the feelings, for example, of a 14 year old rape victim being violated a second time by the accursed state that murdered Lincoln and had no reservations about taking children from their mothers and selling them -- or raping those mothers for that matter. It's a state that talks a lot about Jesus and distrusts those who don't. It's a state wherein people tend to like Rick Santorum and others who have a lot to say about what consenting adults can do with what and with which and to whom -- and talk about Jesus and small government a lot.

Keep in mind, this is not an examination done for a medical reason. It's not done to protect the public from a disease or to protect the woman to whom it's being done. It's not something that one can opt out of. It's an act of intimidation and a deliberate act of humiliation. It was passed because of the religious objections of men who were elected to represent everyone, but instead represent preachers and priests -- and in a state that has just decided that a single cell has civil rights but a breathing female of child bearing age has not, can't we be excused for wondering whether these "conservatives" will either ban contraception soon or require some other humiliating procedure before allowing it?

Can't I be excused for seeing this insane drive to bring back the horrors of medieval Europe in high-tech form to a nation that was formed by repugnance for it as anything at all but Conservative?

Where is the outrage from actual conservatives? You know, those people who insist on a government too weak to do anything but leave us alone. I guess when those sentiments put them in a light that makes them seem too much like Liberals who designed a government that must leave us alone and respects the sanctity of our persons, our bodies, our homes and our rights, they scurry like roaches when the lights are switched on. They scurry because they're the same roaches who supported the horror of slavery, the obscenity of racism and are still at war with the rights of women and a government that protects them.

Conservatives, and this liberal, often decry the trend, falsely identified as Liberal, toward seeking safety by making the public helpless and dependent on authority, but it's in conservative strongholds like the secessionist states that we see just how much that obscene ecclesiastical tyranny has made the weakest and most vulnerable totally dependent upon the state in the most personal way. Small government my ass, it's the old Confederacy out of it's coffin like a putrefying zombie, its pockets filled with church money, corporate money, the money of tyrants staggering toward Washington to eat your freedom.

"Sex," Fame, and Polish (but not only) Hypocrisy

I try to stay away from celebrities and tawdriness as much as possible, mainly because of my pretentious and uppity elitism, but also, to a lesser extent, because the affairs of celebrities are supremely boring.

This case, however, is irresistible for its strange twists and turns, as well as a whiff of both Polishness and uppity elitism with its abominable hypocrisy. I'm talking of course about the saga of Polish director Roman Polanski, who was finally arrested in Switzerland on Saturday and faces extradition to USA. Or maybe not, as his lawyer vows to fight it.

For those who live underwater and away from mass media, a brief recap of Polanski's situation: in 1977 he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, and was able to plead guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. Afterward, the judge in his case, one Laurence Rittenband, allegedly reneged on his plea deal, which scared Polanski enough to flee to the welcoming bosom of Mother Europe. Polanski was on the run from justice for over 30 years. For more background on Polanski's case, see this.

What's surprising, among many surprises here, is that he periodically lived in Switzerland, undisturbed by authorities, so questions are being raised about the timing of his arrest. Some clear-eyed observers even suggested that this is a gesture of good will on the part of the Swiss, intended to placate Americans angry about Switzerland giving financial shelter to our domestic financial terrorists whiz kids. A strange coincidence no.1: Polanski's arrest came two days after the death of Susan Atkins, who murdered his second wife, Sharon Tate, during a Manson-led and inspired drunken orgy in 1969. A strange coincidence no.2: one day before Polanski's arrest, Poland adopted a new tough law requiring castration for pedophiles (more about it later).

Polanski's arrest has ignited an international debate again, and many law experts and film buffs have weighed in with sympathetic opinions, hoping his case will be dismissed. Among those pleading for leniency is his victim, now 45-year-old Samantha Geimer (previously Gailey), who settled with Polanski, years after her rape, for somewhere around a quarter of a million dollars for "emotional distress." Geimer has asked numerous times for the case against Polanski to be dropped, saying that dredging it up causes her undue stress and pain.

But Polanski never really admitted to his crime, claiming both that the victim lied to him about her age and that the "sex" was consensual. Of course he never expressed any remorse. In fact, he has absolved himself of responsibility, as seen in the footage of the documentary about him, where he says, defiantly, I like young women, let me put it this way. I think most of men do.

Maybe. But a 13-year-old girl is not a woman, not psychologically, and certainly not legally. Polanski knew this very well when he drugged and raped Samantha. He was 44 at the time and very much attracted to young teenage girls. This is what Samantha looked like as a teen (left).

As to consensual, a 44-year-old man who drugs a 13-year-old (or anyone, for that matter) and forces himself on her, while she is crying and protesting, can hardly make this claim. See this for a transcript of Samantha's testimony in court.

It is not unreasonable to suspect that Gailey was not the only child who fell victim to Polanski's forbidden urges. Pedophiles are not reformable, and are known to be repeat offenders. Not long after his escape to Europe, Polanski was photographed parading around in company of very young, likely underage, females.

Another twisted aside: Polanski's wife, French actress Emmanuele Seigner, is younger than his victim. Seigner (below right, with Polanski in Paris, 2007) was an adult of the ripe age of 23 when they married. Polanski was 56. They have two children together, a son and a daughter.

The documentary I mention above, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, directed by Marina Zenovich, paints an extremely sympathetic portrait of Polanski as a victim of miscarried justice. While Zenovich seemingly acknowledges the awfulness of his crime, she is clearly in awe of Polanski's talent and less than objective in her assessment. She calls him misunderstood and endlessly fascinating.

As Bill Wyman of Salon.com writes, In "Wanted and Desired," Zenovich casts Polanski, whose face repeatedly fills the screen with a Byronic luminosity, as a tragic figure, a child survivor of the Holocaust haunted by the murder of his wife, the actress Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson family. His friends are uniformly supportive: "This is somebody who could not be a rapist!" one exclaims.

When interviewed about the movie, Zenovich made this strange statement: If it was a violent rape I wouldn't have made this film. She added that it was a tragedy for all involved. It's not for me to judge.

I am dumbfounded. So, say, if knives, ropes, and swinging fists were used, it would have been a reprehensible rape for Ms. Zenovich, enough so that she would not make an apologetic movie about the perp. But since it was only alcohol and drugs, it was acceptable enough? Besides, how was it a tragedy for all involved? And how is it not for her to judge? She is deluding herself if she thinks that she is not offering a judgment by showing such a one-sided portrayal of the story. This is as an advanced and incurable case of celebritis as I have seen.

But of course Zenovich is not alone in putting lipstick on this particularly ugly pig. During a discussion about the case on The View, Whoopi Goldberg said this:

I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't think it was rape-rape.

Boy, I tell ya... And people wonder why Janes and Joes Schmoes don't trust and don't like the Hollywood types. The gulf between the librul, rotten-to-the-core Hollywood and non-nonsense Main Street has just widened with the Polanski's case, probably to unbridgeable proportions.

To put things in perspective for Ms. Zenovich, Ms. Goldberg, and other celebrity-stricken Polanski's defenders, let's recall what the man did exactly:

(...) Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her… Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let’s take a moment to recall that according to the victim’s grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, “No,” then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

I dunno, to me it sounds and looks like rape-rape.

The bizarre, if not downright psychopathic, reaction of the political and artistic elites to Polanski's arrest continues. The French are up in arms:

French foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (co-founder of Doctors without Borders, EM) and Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand both sharply criticised US and Swiss authorities over the arrest, which came as the Franco-Polish director arrived in Zurich to receive an award.(...) Mr Mitterrand said on Sunday that Polanski, director of Rosemary's Baby and an Oscar winner for The Pianist, had been "thrown to the lions over an ancient affair that doesn't make any sense." To jail him, he added, was "absolutely dreadful." Mr Kouchner said: "This affair is frankly a bit sinister ... Here is a man of such talent, recognised worldwide, recognised especially in the country where he was arrested. This is not nice at all."

Huh? I'm as uppity an elitist as they come, so I can tell you what's absolutely dreadful, sinister, and not nice at all: drugging and raping kids (or anyone, for that matter), and not feeling any remorse for it, that's what.

But of course the French (who may have other motives for defending Polanski) are not alone. The film community (which has been silent about many pressing issues facing our nation), has spoken loudly and clearly on behalf of the pedophile and law-evading fugitive.

As Reuters reports, the Zurich Film Festival jury accused Switzerland of "philistine collusion" with U.S. authorities and wore red badges reading "Free Polanski," and Debra Winger, president of the Festival, which was to give Polanski an honorary award, said the following: We hope today this latest order will be dropped. It is based on a three-decade-old case that is all but dead but for minor technicalities.

Whoa. One would think Polanski is some human rights advocate, imprisoned for standing up for the voiceless and dispossessed. A Gandhi, almost. So let's just remind ourselves, again, before we start shedding tears here, that he is an unrepentant pedophile, who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and then ran from justice.

Joining Polanski's apologists are other Hollywood (and not only) big names, who have prepared a petition demanding his release. The petition is signed, so far, by 138 celebrities and industry people, including Woody Allen (now there is a surprise), Harvey Weinstein, Pedro Almodovar, Martin Scorsese, Monica Bellucci, Tilda Swinton, David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Wim Wender, Salman Rushdie, Bernard-Henri Levy, Milan Kundera, Isabelle Huppert, Diane von Furstenberg, and is backed by France's Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers). It states, in part:

"It seems inadmissible (...) that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him. (...) The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance ... opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects."

Sigh. Actions of which no one can know the effects? Folks, the guy drugged and raped a 13-year-old and then fled the country to avoid prison. He should be held responsible for his crime, period. What mysterious effects do you have in mind? Unless by this you mean that predators and criminals cannot hide in supposedly neutral places and evade the law forever. But that should be no mystery to you or anyone, I hope.

Meanwhile, Harvey Weinstein is trying to recruit more supporters for Polanski. As his company told CNN, We are calling every filmmaker we can to help fix this terrible situation.

Again, and I know I repeat myself and bore you to death, the only terrible situation here is that an admitted and unrepentant pedophile has been on the run for over 30 years, enjoying freedom, fame and wealth, and abusing who knows how many other victims. Was Mr. Weinstein trying to fix that in the past 30 years? No, I didn't think so.

One of the many bizarre twists of this case is the fact that Mia Farrow, who starred in Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, and years later accused her own long-time boyfriend, Woody Allen, of sexually abusing their adopted children, has consistently defended Polanski in the media.

But wait, there is more.

Joan Shore, co-founder of Women Overseas for Equality(!) and a Polanski fan, wrote a blog post for HuffPo titled, Polanski's Arrest: Shame on the Swiss -- read it, it's a full-blown apologia for the perp and a classic example of blaming the victim.

Another HuffPo blogger, writer and film critic John Farr wrote a post titled, Leniency for Polanski. In it, he argues, unbelievably, but predictably, that Polanski should be forgiven because 1. he is a genius, 2. he's suffered so much in his life, 3. his victim wants him released; 4. he's paid for his crime (no explanation how), and 5. he is reformed (i.e., is married and with no other accusations of abuse -- as if that ever mattered in cases of pedophiles). Oh, and 6. it was a long time ago.

Under the onslaught of critical comments from HuffPo's readers, Farr has revised some of his most egregious statements already, including one about "seduction" that supposedly took place on that fateful day in 1977.

Perhaps the most mind-boggling, to me, reactions to Polanski's arrest have come from the Polish political and artistic circles. Polish politicians have spoken on Polanski's behalf:

Poland and France intend to make a joint appeal to Switzerland and the United States to have Polanski released from his detention, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the Polish news agency PAP. Sikorski said he and French counterpart Bernard Kouchner also plan to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to offer Polanski clemency.

A semi-relevant aside: Radek Sikorski is a Polish neocon, who worked, for years, for American Enterprise Institute and The National Review. He is married to American journalist, Anne Applebaum, who penned an impassioned piece in defense of Polanski for The Washington Post. It is relevant to mention it since neocons tend to be socially conservative and one would expect them to condemn a child rape and its perpetrator. One would be wrong.

Among Polish luminaries speaking out in Polanski's defense is film director Krzysztof Zanussi, who called Polanski's rape victim a "young prostitute," and Polanski, a victim of a sinister plot concocted by the "prostitute" and her mother to extort money from him. In a Polish TV talk show, Zanussi said the following (translation mine):

Zanussi: If (Polanski) were not so famous, the fact that over thirty years ago in Los Angeles, which is a city of particularly loose morals, he used services of some underage prostitute, because that's what it likely was...

Interrupted by a female journalist, Monika Olejnik: No, no. This was a 13-year-old girl, she was not a prostitute. It was not for money, so it was not prostitution.

Zanussi: In this world, there are many things that are done not for money but for fame, for career. (...) I know (Polanski) as a man who escaped the ghetto, who is tragic and has those "dark chapters" in his life. I think if he were not famous, this matter would not have had any traction today. (...) I don't believe in the victim's innocence. She does not appear to have been there by accident. In this circle of people, who would do anything for career and money, it seems that the intent of the mother, who was involved in it, was an attempt at blackmailing Polanski. At taking anything from him that he could give. And he did not give it, and that was his mistake. He could have paid them off and he didn't. Maybe he was too proud for it, too Polish.

Holy crap... First of all, there isn't anything "Polish" about this behavior, I just have to say this. At least I hope there isn't -- because if that's Polish, then Poles are screwed (no pun whatsoever).
(Another aside: I can tell you from personal experience of having grown up in Poland that there is -- or was, back in my day -- a pedophile on every street corner. And those who do not operate on street corners can be found in doctors' offices, schools, churches, and in any other place frequented by young people. Yes, I'm talking about the abusers in position of authority, who remain as untouchable as their victims stay nameless, bearing silent scars for a long time, if not forever.)

Second, it is painfully obvious that Zanussi, who, btw, is one of the most renowned and respected Polish film directors, has no clue about details of the Polanski's case (at least I hope so, because if he does know the details and still says these things, it makes matters worse). That does not stop him from offering his unequivocal defense of his friend and smearing the reputation of his child-victim. That's not Polish, any of it.

But then one wouldn't know it perusing Polish media. For Zanussi is not alone in his ignorant and harmful defense of the famous pedophile. A well-known Polish actress, Dorota Stalinska, said this (translation mine):

First of all, it was not rape, but consensual sex with an underage girl. We know that a 13-year-old girl may look 20. I have a 20-year-old son. He could tell you how 13-year-old girls behave and how they provoke and jump into beds not only of 20-year-olds, but of 40-year-olds. 13-year-old girls seduce grown men. It's the same in Poland and everywhere else. Zanussi is right.

And then there is Lech Wałęsa -- you may remember him as the founder of Solidarity, the first president of post-socialist Poland, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Wałęsa too defends Polanski:

(Polanski) is a great person, he's done so much for Poland and the world. He also could have sinned. Make sure he really did sin. If he did, you can forgive him this one. I will do everything I can to defend him. (...) I am his friend.

How Christian, to forgive the sinner and forget the victim. Ugh.

This is disheartening. I can see that not much has changed in Poland in matters of sexual abuse and treatment of the victims. In these respects, Polish social mores, if not the law, are still in the Middle Ages.

This quote, however, really takes my cake:

Polanski has already "atoned for the sins of his young years," Jacek Bromski, head of the Polish Filmmakers Association, told The AP. "He has paid for it by not being able to enter the U.S. and in his professional life he has paid for it by not being able to make films in Hollywood."

Um... You're kidding, right? Not being able to make films in Hollywood is the heart-breaking punishment for child rape and 30+ years of evading justice?

But, wait, it gets stranger yet.

The day before Polanski's arrest, Poland approved a law making chemical castration mandatory for pedophiles in some cases, sparking criticism from human rights groups. Under the law, sponsored by Poland's center-right government, pedophiles convicted of raping children under the age of 15 years or a close relative would have to undergo chemical therapy on their release from prison.

"The purpose of this action is to improve the mental health of the convict, to lower his libido and thereby to reduce the risk of another crime being committed by the same person," the government said in a statement.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said late last year he wanted obligatory castration for pedophiles, whom he branded 'degenerates'. Tusk said he did not believe "one can use the term 'human' for such individuals, such creatures.Therefore I don't think protection of human rights should refer to these kind of events.".

So there we have it, a curious -- or not -- double standard. Pedophiles are considered degenerates in Poland now, undeserving of human rights. Except when they are famous filmmakers with powerful friends, that is.

An inescapable lesson from Polanski's saga so far: if you are going to rape a child, don't be a plumber or auto mechanic; be famous and rich. Then justice will be slow and lenient for you, and people will forgive your crime. Nah, they'll be clamoring to speak out in your defense.

P.S. In yet another strange twist to this already twisted story, one of the defense witnesses in Polanski's case, interviewed by Zenovich for her documentary, recanted his statement regarding Judge Rittenband.

Cross-posted at The Middle of Nowhere.