[lbo-talk] Polanski

Alan Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Wed Sep 30 06:50:48 PDT 2009


On Sep 30, 2009, at 12:43 AM, Shane Mage wrote:
>>
>> Not rape. *Statutory* Rape. Two totally different things.
>>>
>>
>> Did you read her testimony? Of course not.
>>
>
> Having no prurient interest in the matter, and still less hysteria about
> "drugs," I read only the summary. That was enough. Grand jury testimony is
> not evidence of anything except what the prosecutor coached the witness to
> say, as I've pointed out more than once.
> Shane Mage
>

The staggering thing here is that you seem to define this whole issue as if it were 1) about sex and puritanism and 2) prosecutorial misconduct, bracketing - as Doug has repeatedly pointed out - that there is clear evidence (unless you wish to dispose of all grand jury, defense and prosecutorial evidence where alleged victims, defense witnesses, defendants and witnesses for the defense where defense councel and/or prosecutors worked with people before their testimony) of 1) her repeatedly saying "No sex, I want to go home." and of 2) her being plied with drugs (none of which Polanski has ever denied, to the best of my knowledge).

The most staggering thing is that you take the utterly ahistorical and immaterial - read, idealist - position that the contradictory nature of prudish/liberated sexuality in the second half of the twentieth century US has no bearing on power relations between adult men such as Polanski and the 13-year-old very young women across that period and into the present. Simply because things might could be different if the world was completely different doesn't mean that the standards of a completely different world have any bearning on this one as anyone and everyone on this list knows. Your stance seems like the anti-Dworkin, she read horrible power into every modern sexual sex act and you read it out and both of you do so because the world SHOULD be different... I don't know if I'll ever stop shaking my head about this.

Yeah, sure, western culture is stupidly neurotic about sex and infantilizes children... but you can't simply dismiss that as unimportant when it comes to power relations and non-consensual sexual conduct under these conditions... or at least you can't do so if you want to engage in analysis of other aspects of modern society which take real historical and material conditions seriously when it comes to what is appropriate and inappropriate action.

Wojtek's reaction, especially below - I thread through gmail - indicates that his problem with the case is that the grand jury evidence isn't convincing to him... while I disagree, at least he's not talking about applying fantasy or utopian standards to real and ugly modern life.



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