According to the Sexual Assault Glossary of Terms, it defines statutory rape as “sexual intercourse between an adult and a minor. The adult can be found guilty of statutory rape in courts of law even if the minor was a willing partner.”
According to the laws of California, Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a Minor is defined as:
- an adult can be guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse if he or she has sex with a minor.
- a minor can be guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse if he or she has sex with another minor.
What are the penalties for Unlawful Sexual Intercourse?
1) If a person is no more than three years older than the minor with whom they have sex, that person is guilty of a misdemeanour and can be imprisoned in the county jail for up to one year or fined up to $1,000.00.
2) If a person is more than three years older than the minor with whom they have sex, that person is guilty of a misdemeanour or a felony. If convicted of a felony, that person can be imprisoned in state prison for up to four years.
Now despite what anyone may think would be the fitting punishment for director Roman Polanski, even if he’s returned to the States on the 32 year-old charges of unlawful sex with a minor, laws state that he won’t get what people want him to get. Namely. tossed in prison with the key thrown in the Pacific. It won’t happen. Even the issue of the flight to France would be off the table if the case is completely thrown out. But according to the California Penal Code contained in subsection (b) of section 4530, Polanski could receive up to 16 months to two or three years in prison to be served consecutively. Though if the case is throwing up completely after the appeals process is done, it too will be vacated because it is connected to the initial crime. Ergo, no crime…no need to flee.
It is still amazing to me the amount of people who refuse to STILL look at the facts of this case. Those are that the term ‘unlawful sexual intercourse’ is tantamount to consensual sex, no matter which way anyone wants to cut it. The fact that Geimer was thirteen at the time, is the only matter in which anything illegal happened. So far as this blogger can tell, there is no evidence against Polanski other than the panties containing what appeared to be semen.
According to Geimer’s (nee Gailey) initial testimony, which all posters on message boards love to point to on thesmokinggun.com website, she testified Polanski had ‘entered’ her through the back or ‘butt’ as she called it. She also stated that he’d performed ‘Cuddliness’ on her. Cunnilingus for the uninitiated. However, acccording to the medical and scientific evidence, all slides came back negative. For anyone having seen any one episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”, this means no force and no noticeable intercourse took place. Tissues around the anus are so sensitive that any kind of insertion of anything larger than a pencil, would cause damage, yet Geimer had no visible tearing or bruising either anally or vaginally. There was no hint of saliva, which would also have been present in the panties, except, no blood typing or sub-typing took place. This leaves one conclusion of the medical and scientific evidence fails, either no sex occurred, or some kind of consensual sex occurred. Meaning that whatever sex happened, was not rape or force, rather a simple act of saying ‘yes’.
Most would consider that Geimer saying she said ‘no’ repeatedly would be enough to say it was rape, but with her shifting feelings on Polanski and his work, it says something else to the intelligent observer. As a rape victim myself, I can tell you no true victim of rape ever wishes the charges to be dropped against their perpetrator. NONE! They can forgive, certainly. That is the inherent nature within us all. But the fact is the hurt has been done. One who has truly been violated does not seek some kind of closure through asking for a dismissal of the charges. I know in my case, there was no trial and no reporting to the authorities, but if I had, I can tell you with certainty I’d want him to rot for what he did to me. No doubt. What I don’t know about Geimer is how she can cooperate with the Zenovich documentary without saying something about no matter what illegalities Rittenband committed, Polanski still has to do the time for what he did to me. But there’s none of that. Only saying the charges should be dropped. In her affidavit filed in January when Polanski’s lawyers asked for a dismissal of the charges, she states, “If Polanski cannot stand before this court to make this request, I, as the victim do. I have urged that this matter come to a formal end. I have urged the district attorney and the court dismiss these charges.” This goes counter to any true victim’s right to seek justice for what was horribly done to them. That she does not want ‘justice’ for herself, means there is only one reasonable conclusion: The sex was consensual.
Now before anyone comes down on me stating that a 13 year-old cannot consent, I submit they can…and do. The time when this incident occurred was not like today’s insistence on ‘protecting the child’. In fact, it was all about the child seeking independence for themselves as well as their baby boomer parents seeking to relieve themselves of parental responsibilities. Films like “The Ice Storm” starring Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline are indicative of what the 70s was like. Key parties, wife swapping, orgies, drinking and drugs were all the rage. This was the upswing to Disco and where Studio 54 flourished in a Dionysian dream of permissiveness and sexual liberation. This was before AIDS and the so-called ‘punishment’ for having sex began. There were no apologies given, it was just done. The moral shift began in the Regan era where ‘just say no’ was tantamount to your mother shaking her finger at you for being naughty. Evangelical ministers like Jerry Falwell and Jim Baker were preaching on the ills of the 70s, when in all actuality they were having affairs and doing the deed despite their ranting. Whatever the 70s were, I’m pretty pissed at all those wanting to conscript my era for their own, when they never lived through it. They certainly do not know of the permissive element of that time.
As a 46 year-old born during the upswing of the 60s, I can tell you those times were very permissive. My parents were from the pre-WWII era. Both born during the twenties, they were contrasts in elements. Dad was an old-world fart who believed that a girl was pure as the driven snow until her marriage. Mom believed in freedom for women. So that made for a free thinking, though very careful with what she did daughter. Though I was never loose by the conventional sense of the word, I did find my ‘whoopee’ spot very young and loved using it to my own pleasure. By the time my period came at eleven, I had pretty much felt out every square inch of my body, delighting in what I found there. I had my first boyfriend at twelve and yes, we were involved. We’d done those experimental touches and found we liked it. I knew what he had, he knew what I had. Everything was going fine until one night.
December 21, 1977 was a night I’ll always remember. There was a Christmas party my parents were having at our house, and two other couples were invited to celebrate the Spirits of Christmas cheer. My dad had been in and out of detox for alcohol abuse and my mom had become somewhat of an enabler, drinking her fair share of the ’spirits’. I really wasn’t sure if it was to keep up with my dad, but certainly it was something. This night I was expected to act as DJ for the night on the new stereo my dad had just bought. It was fun to put those records on the new turntable and watch them spin. But the other thing I had done that night was try to experiment with my sexuality…my allure with this new ‘thing’ I had. I decided that night to wear no bra under a very revealing powder blue, button up top. Testing the waters. What I was testing, I really didn’t know. All I knew was that I was trying this new thing out. At the same time as the DJing, I was also expected to serve up the pickles, the olives, the cheese trays and most of all, the little dishes of fruit salad with sour cream and marshmallows. It had started snowing just when the other couples arrived around seven. Coats were taken and put in the closet, my dad already on his way to a bender, was making the drinks. I was introduced to Sarah and Del (both pseudonyms) and Dinah and Mick (both pseudonyms). My dad had met both couples at the legion and asked them over for this get together. Sarah and Dell were just sweet. Scottish and lovely, they chatted with a zeal that would tend to knock one of their pins. Del told some funny stories of the ‘old country’ while Sarah sat and watched him talk. Dinah and Mick were different.
Both Dinah and Mick had a bit of a dark aura over them. Joining in the chit chat, neither looked to truly be ‘in’ on it all. Not like Sarah and Del. Del hadn’t noticed my cleavage…a true gentleman, but Mick seemed to delight in it. He looked, and looked, and looked some more. I remember him being very accommodating to me, as if setting me up for something. He’d compliment me on my music choices, touch my hand when I gave him a new drink, even getting up to touch my back when I excused myself to go get another ginger ale from the kitchen. While there, my brother and his new fiancée returned home. They’d just gotten engaged that night and it was decided she would stay over instead of trying to get the bus home at that late hour. They were already active sexually, but for appearances sake, my mom told me to go upstairs and make sure my room was cleaned up so Tara (a pseudonym) could start out in my room upstairs, then after my dad went to bed, she would go downstairs to the basement room that was my brother’s. All very hush-hush for my dad’s benefit. So I climbed the stairs to my room to remove all the 45 records I’d laid out wondering which I’d use during the night as DJ. I had been up there about ten to fifteen minutes when the door opened and Mick walked in…his penis outside his trousers, and he was stroking it.
At that moment, I froze. All I remember was all the blood draining from my body and I was cold as he turned, locked my door, then came for me. To this day I can still feel his hand on the small of my back, the way he breathed on my neck and how he grouped for my nipple inside that powder blue, button up I’d chosen for that night. He was hungry. Suddenly I found his penis between the legs of my brushed denims, and he was getting off by dry humping me all the while his other hand fidgeted for the zipper on my jeans. His fingers found the flesh between my legs and his breath heated up. Soon, he’d pushed them inside, but it was awkward. He wanted something else.
He moved me over to my bed and laid me down on the spot I’d cleared and took my jeans and my underwear down to my ankles. Then he mounted me and just began driving himself in and out, in and out, in and out I can’t remember how many times. At that point, I’d all but left my body. I remember looking up and seeing the overhead light looking funny. It was black all the way around it except for a pooled light source. I guess at some point, I’d begun crying because all I remember is that feeling of being underwater. I can’t remember how long he’d been inside me or how many times he’d raped me, but I do remember what happened next. He withdrew then sat me up on the side of my bed, then opened my mouth and forced me to orally copulate him. He’d ejaculated in my vagina and I remember blood and something of a creamy texture while he pumped in and out of my mouth. I remember gagging a few times, and something coming out of my mouth at the sides. I guess at that point, he’d ejaculated again, holding my head straight between his palms as he finished. He then kissed me on the top of my head and turned to the door and left. How long this had all taken, I don’t know. All I did know was looking down and seeing my jeans and panties in a pool at my ankles and thinking how odd it was they were there. I stood, pulled them up and had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom. As I left my room, my mind was blank…not quite sure what to do, only that I had to get to the bathroom. When I wiped myself, I found blood which I thought was odd since I’d finished my period the day before. I never ever spotted. This was part of the shock of the incident. Not comprehending what had happened and not completely there. All I knew was that I had to go to the bathroom.
Once I finished and left the bathroom, Dinah had come up to use the facilities and she had a look in her eyes. I recall now it was she knew what Mick had just done. But she just brushed past me. My mom called me back downstairs, and still in that haze, I went. Del and Sarah were trying to figure out the stereo while my brother and Tara were showing the ring to my mom and dad. Mick was sitting on the couch as Dinah rejoined him. Mick had begun talking to my brother about stereos. My brother had received a new one when my dad bought his and Mick was interested in seeing it. My brother asked him to come downstairs and as he did, Mick slipped past me, then reached out his hand to take me by my arm. He acted all nicey nice, making it appear like he just wanted me to come with him. Once down there, my brother began showing him the stereo’s doodads and gadgets. And when my brother put on an album to let Mick hear the sound from the four speakers, Mick came up to me and began making it look like he was dancing with me. His hand went for the small of my back and I was frozen again. His hand brushed my breasts several times, catching the skin where the shirt was open. More violation. This time, it was open as if he was compounding my shame by doing it so brazenly in front of my brother.
Soon after that, mom called from upstairs, Everyone was leaving. The roads were getting slick and Sarah and Dell and Dinah and Mick had to get home before it got worse. Mom wanted me to say goodbye to everyone. AS I did, Dell was kind and considerate and was almost out the door with Sarah. Dinah was talking to my mom as Mick was saying his goodbyes to Tara. Then Mick came to me and reached around Tara to touch my breasts. Tara realized what was happening and blocked him. Too late, I was downstairs before anything was said. I ran into my brother’s bathroom downstairs and refused to come up until Mick was gone. Tara knew something had happened and told my brother. I found out much, much, much later that Dinah had asked my mom on the way out to the car that night, if Mick had done anything to me that might have scared me. She knew.
Everything after that was like it was suddenly my fault. I couldn’t tell anyone, though Tara knew. While dad slept most of the next day away, I told my mom what happened. I didn’t tell her all of what happened. I didn’t show her the scrapes on the insides of my thighs, or the bruising I’d found there when I took a mirror just to see. I didn’t tell her that he put his penis in my mouth, or that he’d hurt me. All I told her was that he’d touched me and felt me down there inside of my pants. I couldn’t tell the rest, and I doubt I could have even if pressed. At that age and at that level of trauma, I couldn’t think or didn’t wish to think. When my mom called Mick to come over later that day, he swore on the life of his children he wouldn’t touch another drink. He also acted all contrite. Saying all the right things at the right time. Told me he was very sorry and he wouldn’t do it again. And I believed him. I had to.
Several side effects of that night stuck with me for a while. One thing I did for months until we moved from that place into a new townhouse and got rid of that bed, was to take my pillow and a blanket and slept on a small rug in front of my small television on the floor. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in that bed again. Another thing was that I didn’t shower for days. Didn’t brush my teeth. I felt dirty. I felt like I wanted to crawl up inside the wall and die. My boyfriend wondered why I didn’t want to be with him the way we had been. I couldn’t tell him. I’d go to school and sit there, not concentrating. I’m not sure if any of my teachers though anything of me, but I knew at the time, I didn’t care.
When we moved six months later to a new townhouse, my parents bought me a new bed. I finally started sleeping in one at night…and through the night. I don’t know if it was because I felt safe, or just happy that I wouldn’t have to face another night in that bed or looking at that bed, but I knew I was finally starting to ‘come out of it’.
One July morning in 1978, I was sleeping. I think it was a Saturday, I know it was summer vacation and I’d be starting high school that fall. I was dressed in a tank and a pair of sweats and my dad came storming into my room. He was drunk, as usual, and ordered me out of my bed and downstairs. The shit had hit the fan. My dad had wanted to have Sarah and Del and Dinah and Mick over to see the new place and for a barbeque. My mom had told him she’d be okay with Sarah and Del, but not Dinah or Mick particularly. She’d also told him why. She told my dad that Mick had touched me the previous December at the Christmas party and told him he’d gone inside my pants. My dad was furious. He called up Dinah and more or less lit into her about how sick and perverted Mick was. I was told to get on the extension and tell Dinah what Mick had done….I couldn’t. I couldn’t say what I never said to anyone…the truth of what happened. it was still too traumatic. So as I listened to Dinah, she suddenly started calling me a slut, tramp, a seducer. She’d known what he possibly did that night, but turned it on me. As Dinah hung up on my dad, he became furious. Later that day, Mick and his son Danny (a pseudonym) showed up, angry at how upset my dad had made Dinah. Mick denied everything. Denied ever being sorry for what he did, and denied he’d been drinking that night. Danny then drilled me about what his father had done. He got angry and started yelling at me, demanding me to tell him what his father had done. I said nothing. I sat there completely in shock again, because of all that was happening…AGAIN! As Danny’s voice got louder and louder, my mother pushed him out of the house. He started to get violent with my mother and as my brother came up the walk, he grabbed Danny and began pummelling him. Danny, the taller of the two and the most fit, started wailing on my brother. So in the last ditch effort to have it stop, I screamed that nothing had happened and I’d made it all up. The entire thing then begged everyone to leave. I ran upstairs to my room, slammed the door and just cried. Mick managed to get his son off of my brother and away. My brother was yelling at my drunken dad accusing him of causing all of this. I’m not sure if he knew what had happened, or even suspected, but my relationship with my brother changed radically after that afternoon.
Some six months later, I was with a friend at a restaurant ordering pasta when I had to go to the bathroom. I got up and headed back to the back of the place when a hand came out and grabbed my wrist. When I looked down at the table, I noticed it was Mick. He was looking up at me in that same fashion he had while I was sitting on the side of my bed before he forced his penis into my mouth. Satisfied. While he gripped my wrist tightly, he said three words to me. Three words that would remain with me to this day. He said, “No hard feelings.”
I saw him about five more times after that day. The second time being out on the street where he noticed me. That same look. Those same words. The other four times he didn’t see me. They were chance encounters, but they had an effect on me. That effect was pure fear. As of this typing, I’ve got knots in my stomach as I did that night and the subsequent times I’ve seen him. It’s a visceral reaction. Something that cannot be removed from the spirit once it’s there. I’ve had residual from it to this day. I cannot do oral sex on a man. I just cannot do it. Another residual of that night is the relationship I have with my mother. While I love her and will do what I can as a daughter for her (she’s 85 now), I just cannot be close to her. I tell her I love her, but there’s so much unsaid. So much I still blame her for that it’s sort of impossible to be open with her. The last residual I have of that night is my feelings on the Polanski case and what it means to me.
According to Geimer, the event can “All go away…” Her words. She also claims she’s ’so over it’. She has also gone almost over backwards to make sure the courts don’t punish him further for that night, even so far as to sign an affidavit with the court in January 2009 to ask that all charges against Polanski be dropped and it all be done to ’save her any further personal harm’. What harm, I ask?
A victim of rape simply doesn’t forgive and forget and move on. It is a permanent imprint on your soul. So deep is it, it does affect everything you do for the rest of your life. Certainly, it isn’t a memory 24/7, but it does colourize who you become and the motions you make as you go through life. I know it has me. Samantha Geimer went so far as to publically forgive Polanski in 1997. In 2003, she wrote an op-ed piece for the LA Times in which she said:
“But I believe that Mr. Polanski and his film should be honoured according to the quality of the work. What he does for a living and how good he is at it have nothing to do with me or what he did to me. I don’t think it would be fair to take past events into consideration. I think that the academy members should vote for the movies they feel deserve it. Not for people they feel are popular.”
My rapist was an interior designer. For me to write an almost glowing letter of praise for his work or what he did, would be against my very nature. He hurt me. He taunted me. He raped me. No way could I ever think of writing an article for a local magazine praising his work or what he did. I certainly wouldn’t ask his peers to celebrate him with an award. It’s obcene in a way. I know what was done to me that night and forgiveness and praise is not what I would give to my rapist if I could. And some say that for Geimer to forgive Polanski means she’s a strong person, an honest person. What kind of person truly if their claims of rape are true, wants total exoneration for the brutality of what was supposedly done to her that afternoon? I know I don’t think of Christmas the way I did. I likely would change if I had children, but until that happens if ever, my feelings won’t change. And that Geimer has three children, sons, who she’s told about what happened that afternoon. How do you look at them knowing you’re telling them one thing, then doing something else to be ’so over it’? I don’t know. I guess I’m not that forgiving.
The other reason I wrote all this is because looking back at the Zenovich documentary, the one thing it never did was explain about the medical or scientific tests done on Geimer at the time. Geimer had been taken to Parkland Hospital to be examined in light of her ‘traumatic’ rape. As is with all rape victims, swabs were taken of her anal and vaginal areas for proof of sperm or other fluids. Anyone who watches “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” on any given week, knows this is important for any evidence in any rape whether the victim survived or not. According to the book “Polanski: The Filmmaker as Voyeur” by Barbara Leaming, the tests done on Geimer came back negative. No tearing or ripping of the anal cavity or of the peritoneum was found. No blood nor semen were found and the slides were all negative. No evidence of saliva was found. According to Geimer’s account in her Grand Jury testimony, Polanski entered her from behind, or as she said, entered her ‘butt’. She then stated that he performed ‘Cuddliness’ on her. Yet no trace of saliva as found.
All there is against Polanski is a pair of panties with what looked to be sperm, but another thing the Zenovich documentary doesn’t answer is if that sperm was tested. Blood typing and sub-typing was available back then. So a source could be found and linked to Polanski in some way as to have actual proof a rape occurred, but there is none. Today it would be easy to take a sample from those panties and get an actual DNA signature from them to identify Polanski once and for all. And if that DNA doesn’t belong to Polanski, what then?
It was known at the time that Geimer had had relations with other males. Their ages is somewhat debateable, but there was prior sexual history with other males. So where are the convictions for them? Where is the prosecution of Geimer’s mother Suzanne for neglect or allowing Geimer to run around having sex with other males? Where is the indignation from Geimer herself, for her mother’s ill attention? I know I have issues with my mom and my relationship with her is strained, yet there was Suzanne Gailey happily smiling and attending the premiere of “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” on the red carpet in New York, rubbing shoulders with Dustin Hoffman, and others they’d both hoped to rub shoulders with back in the day.
The final question I have is this: If Geimer doesn’t truly feel she was harmed by Polanski, then why even bother continuing with this persecution? As a rape victim, I am incensed by the amount of shit that is being hurled at Polanski after his arrest. Like I stated in part one of this commentary, where have all these Johnny-Come-Latelies come from? What real stake do they have in the continued Polanski bashing? And after he’s cleared or pardoned, how does this maligned man get back a semblance of honour or respect?
As a victim of rape myself, one would think I’d hate Polanski. But I don’t. Why? I don’t think it was rape. I know rape. I know it was consensual. How? Read part three….
Tags: roman polanski
November 29th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
nice articel, just thought to elt you know that the page looks brpken on Android Brow ser
January 13th, 2010 at 12:03 am
[...] wishes to have a fuller understanding of rape and its long term and short term consequences to read Samskara’s presentation and analysis of her rape. In the context of her rape experience, Samskara explains why the so-called facts presented by [...]