One phrase I kept hearing over and over again, particularly from the French, was that we Americans were overly "puritanical" in our thinking for charging Polanski with a crime for what he did. But last time I checked, an adult having sex with a 13 year old girl was illegal in France too. Doesn't that make them equally "puritanical?" I would like to see a survey of how many French think sex with 13 year olds should be legal.
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Yes it is illegal but would certainly not be treated the same way as in the US, even today. For example a teacher who had sex with a 12 years old student recently got 6 months jail, another got 3 years for something similar. I'm talking about consensual sex here, rape is another story, but in the 70s rape wasn't taken seriously anywhere.
If it wasn't an adult but instead a teen having sex with another teen, nothing would happen. In the US putting the older one in jail and on a sex offenders list is no trouble.
asmomo:
"I'm talking about consensual sex here, rape is another story, but in the 70s rape wasn't taken seriously anywhere."
I bet it was taken seriously by the person who got rapped.
I don't think anyone really thinks what Polanski did is not seriously wrong, but the US IS very puritanical and their sentencing on sex crimes can be very erratic, arbitrary, and overly harsh because instead of JUSTICE you have a lot of elected judges trying to "send a message" that they are "tough on sex crime".
The US recently prosecuted an 18-year-old lesbian for having sex with her younger teen girlfriend. So consensual sex harms teens apparently, but throwing older teens in prison (where they might be VIOLENTLY raped) is fine. They also gave an adult female teacher 8-25 years for a consensual sex with a 15-year-old boy. That's more than most violent rapists and even many murderers get. It's not that the teacher wasn't wrong and shouldn't at the very least be banned from teaching, but when you waste resources "sending a message" like this and imprisoning a person who is no real threat to society, you let a lot more DANGEROUS people go free. For instance, a vicious pimp that kidnapped, raped, beat and forced two 14-year-old girls into prostitution got mere 8 year sentence and is already out walking the streets while a middle-age female former teacher languishes in prison for consensual sex.
That is MY issue with the Polanski bs. How much of our limited resources are we going to waste on an 80-year-old FRENCH citizen for ONE sex crime committed FORTY years ago that his own victim doesn't want prosecuted? It's not about morality; it's about common sense.
"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"
The US recently prosecuted an 18-year-old lesbian for having sex with her younger teen girlfriend. So consensual sex harms teens apparently, but throwing older teens in prison (where they might be VIOLENTLY raped) is fine.
They also gave an adult female teacher 8-25 years for a consensual sex with a 15-year-old boy.
For instance, a vicious pimp that kidnapped, raped, beat and forced two 14-year-old girls into prostitution got mere 8 year sentence and is already out walking the streets while a middle-age female former teacher languishes in prison for consensual sex.
That is MY issue with the Polanski bs. How much of our limited resources are we going to waste on an 80-year-old FRENCH citizen for ONE sex crime committed FORTY years ago that his own victim doesn't want prosecuted? It's not about morality; it's about common sense.