When is Rape not Rape?

Apparently when a famous film director drugs a 13 year old girl in a state where the age of consent is 18, and then proceeds to touch her, perform oral sex on her, have vaginal intercourse with her, and sodomize her against her will, it is not rape. 

At least, that's the horrifying conclusion that I've been forced to draw from the mind-boggling support Roman Polanski has been garnering in the past few days since he was arrested in Switzerland.   Reading the comments on the web, from celebrities, from politicians in the French government is enough to make anyone ill.  She "asked for it." He wasn't her first time, so that makes it ok.  It was "just" a "sex act." Her mom pushed her towards Polanski and was ambitious for her daughter to succeed and knew what her daughter was getting into, so it's ok. He's been punished enough, having to live in exile for so many years.  His fear of being jailed and fleeing America for France is understandable given the mess that was made of the rape trial, because his wife was murdered by the Manson Family and he was initially blamed for it, and because his mother died in the Holocaust in a Nazi concentration camp. 

I wish I were joking about the different excuses I've given above, but it enrages me to know that I'm not.  Every single one of those has been bandied about as a reason why Polanski's arrest was injust. 

Excuse me while I let a loose a little profanity: 

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? 

She was a 13 year old girl. 13. In the seventh grade. She was drugged. Her past sexual history, her mother's implicit consent, none of that matters.  She was a 13 year old girl, he was a middle aged man, and he violated her in numerous ways against her will, despite her repeated requests to stop.  Even if the age of consent in California at the time was 14 and she was "only a few weeks away from being 14" (it was not, it was 17 or 18), a few weeks away from being 14 is still not being 14.  It's rape any way you slice the cake, and it sickens me that this poor woman is being forced to have her name dragged through the mud again because her rapist is a famous film director.

And as for him being punished enough already? Um, no.

I don't care if Polanski makes beautiful films, he has not suffered.  Getting to live a comfortable life in France, getting to have a family, and having to schedule your travel plans around knowing which countries won't turn you over to the American authorities isn't a huge hardship.  Maybe he should have considered all of that BEFORE he raped this little girl and fled the country. 

What does this say about us as a society? That we are willing to overlook pedophilc rape and sodomy cases just because of the girl's background? Because Polanski is famous and therefore "misunderstood" and that makes it all ok? In any other circumstance, he would have been locked up, and in today's world, forced to register as a sex offender.  What sickens me is that it's impossible to even know if other girls fell prey to his sick behavior - after watching what happened to Ms. Geimer, I'd be hesitant to come forward too, which is tragic considering how many rapes go underreported to begin with. 

So to all the politicians (Bernard Kouchner, founder of Medecins Sans Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders, and French Foreign Minister, Frederic Mitterand, French Culture Minister), celebrities (Whoopi Goldberg, Harvey Weinstein, Monica Belluci, Wong Kar-Wai), and general members of the public, all I have to say to you is this: I hope to God you never find yourself having to deal with a famous middle aged man who rapes your underage daughter, or sister, or cousin, or niece.  I honestly do, because nobody, not for a single moment, deserves to go through what Samantha Geimer has been experiencing for the past 33 years.