"There really is a special sound of a key turning in a lock in an empty room."
Jenny Diski's latest Diary column for the London Review of Books is something you should probably read.
Jenny Diski's latest Diary column for the London Review of Books is something you should probably read.
I've represented a young rape victim in a civil suit. One where there was some pretense of an "excuse," and plus the girl was drunk on her ass, etc., etc. . .and the jury pretty much disregarded her tears and her testimony of begging and saying No because she was drunk and probably passed out through most of it and she dumbly and drunkenly trusted a man whom she was in a position to trust, given the circumstances.
The Law wasn't really going to solve anything–the money and the piece of paper that said she'd won (which she did, but the damage award screamed You Asked For It)–but she did it just the same, even though it meant having to talk about it in front of all those strangers, and while she never really said so, I knew at the end of the trial–which she won–that she felt just as used as that night the guy locked the door to the room with just her and him inside.
Obviously obvious, but some of us men are real assholes.
What are the people who defend Polanski thinking of?
Their own perfection.
By the time I made it to the end of Diski's account, my stomach was in knots and I was trying not to scream.
crap you made me cry at work
"As further evidence to mitigate Polanski’s crime people have pointed out that after she had been drinking champagne (encouraged by Polanski during the photo session) Polanski got into a jacuzzi and suggested she join him, but she said she had to go home. He phoned her mother and said she would be late, then he let her speak to her mother. Geimer replied ‘no’ when her mother asked if she wanted to be picked up and taken home,…"
Geimer did not get into the Jacuzzi until after the call to the mother.
It's a very moving story but Diski's telling of Geimer's rape varies from the grand jury testimony. Or my understanding of the testimony.
yes. geimer's testimony seems pretty clear that she refused oral sex, which diski seems to be saying she (geimer) did not.
It leads me to believe that people in Europe have not read the testimony. Those who have seem to be disseminating it in a way that is sympathetic to Polanski. Perhaps people there view rape differently. Her account of her own rape is infused with guilt as to her culpability in it.
i'm not sure. i think her view of geimer's rape is coloured by her own rape, but i think the more general view of polanski is coloured more by the view "americans-are-prudes-so-they-must-just-be-being-prudes-in-this-case". i do think many people haven't read geimer's testimony and are assuming that because polanski was convicted of statutory rape, it was just an age of consent thing.
This is an excellent piece. People who defend Polanski are seriously delusional. He should step up and take his punishment.