“Polanski’s victim is not a “sex scandal teen””

That is the title of this awesome post at Salon. Below is an excerpt:

Samantha Geimer was 13 years old when she had her fateful encounter with Polanski in 1977. The California age of consent at the time was 16. We could stop right there and say this therefore is not a “teen sex” story; this is a story with an absence of consent, and we could wrap it for the day and be done with this ridiculous, tawdry, false narrative. But let’s press on.

Let’s note that according to the grand jury testimony, Geimer wasn’t some coy Lolita in all of this, looking to hang Polanski out to dry on the age technicality. Go read the police officer’s account of the vaginal and anal slides taken of Geimer, the narcotics analyst’s description of the Quaaludes found at the scene, read about the semen on her clothes. Read her account of how Polanski took topless photos of her. Gave her Champagne. Split a Quaalude with her. Read how she said, “I was ready to cry … I was going, ‘No. Come on. Stop it.’ But I was afraid.” Read how she says he had intercourse with her, demanding to know if she was on the pill, and how when she said she wasn’t, he told her, “Oh, I won’t come inside you then,” and then he sodomized her. Read how, when asked in her testimony if she “resisted,” the then-13-year-old replied, “A little bit, but not really because … because I was afraid of him.” And then when you’re finished taking all of that in, I’ll come back and remind you that the man pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor. He pleaded guilty. Now, who’d like to go back and take a crack at rewriting some headlines?

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