The XX Factor: What women really think.

Polanski's Case is About Rape, Not Nubile Hotness

A post from DoubleX blogger Amanda Marcotte:

Jessica, your observation about the probation officer's report highlights the fatal flaw in Michael Cieply's argument: Polanski's case was more about 70s attitudes about forcible rape than about 70s attitudes towards sex with teenage girls. What Cieply discovers in investigating the soft hand the media and law enforcement took with Polanski is that rape wasn't taken seriously as a crime in the '70s, at least if the rapist knew his victim. That's what all those feminists taking back the night were protesting! ... (Read more in DoubleX.)

Polanski's Probation Officer's Disturbing Report

The New York Times quotes extensively from the September 1977 probation officer's report about Roman Polanski. The report is appallingly sympathetic towards Polanski, describing his rape of Samantha Gailey as "spontaneous and an exercise of poor judgment by the defendant" and placing the some of the blame back on Gailey and her mom. But the most upsetting part of the report is the part that excuses Polanski's behavior because he's a creative genius and an immigrant ... (Read more in DoubleX.)

A Genius Exception for Rape?

A guest post by Elizabeth Wurtzel:

There is a complicated old joke, not worth telling, but to partially paraphrase the punch line: The difference between heaven and hell is that in hell, the Swiss are the lovers and the French run everything, and in heaven, the French are the lovers and the Swiss run everything.

Obviously, this conclusion has been thrown into question by the botched Polanski pick-up, proving that the Swiss are not really the best stewards of swift order and that the French have some very odd ideas about the art of love, or whatever you want to call it. The joke does not make mention of the United States, but I have a suggestion: In heaven, the Americans are the keepers of justice, and in hell, the Americans are ... the keepers of justice. Because if you are hauled into court in this country, as the Polanski brouhaha displays, it is both the best of times and the worst of times ... (Read more in DoubleX.)

Revisiting the Victim-Blaming Roman Polanski Documentary

A post from DoubleX blogger Lauren Bans:

Marina Zenovich’s documentary on the 1977 Roman Polanski rape case (Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired) is about to become an oft-cited source in the contentious debate about Polanski’s 32-years-removed arrest that went down in Switzerland over the weekend. In it, Zenovich makes the fair argument that the judge overseeing the Polanski case was biased from the get-go—he’s depicted as a celebrity-obsessed, press-provoking joke of a judge whose No.1 concern was his own image. This portrait probably has some truth to it; there was eventually a successful motion to remove him from the case and even the victim has said that the ensuing media shitstorm ruined her adolescense. But the rest of the documentary is a gross overwrought defense of Polanski ... (Read more in DoubleX.)