Oct 01 2009

Polanski: Too Many Men Just Don’t Get It.

In 1977 I was 14. I was one year older than Roman Polanski’s victim. That summer, I had my first ever viewing of a man’s penis. He had a knife against my neck.

I broke a bottle and held it against his, and told him he would certainly kill me, but he had better be ready to bleed first.

I cannot tell you how much weight that incident put on my young, Catholic schoolgirl, innocent shoulders. I cannot tell you how long it took for the fear of “any man may be a predator” took to recede. I cannot tell you how my own reaction, being capable of committing the most grievous “sin” of murder, hurt my soul. Until then I had a hard time even coming up with anything to tell the priest during weekly confessions. I lived my life trying to avoid sin at any cost. There was no such thing as sex ed in Catholic School. All I knew is that we weren’t supposed to think about it, and that it was holy and for marriage.

I do know there was a code of silence, and a tremendous feeling of guilt. It instilled in me a feeling that men were natural beasts, and that perhaps I had done something wrong, daring to ride my horse to a park with my friend, then laying out in the sun in our bathing suits, drinking Pepsi, eating pretzels and Reeses Cups and playing backgammon. Mentally, emotionally, I was a child. I was no sexual being. It threw me off sex until I was 19, and in love for over a year and a half, long after I had lost my religion, I finally lost my virginity.

That was not the last time I was victimized either. Later a rapist broke into my house, but thats a story for another day.

I still carry scars, from attempted rapes and domestic violence. My fear factor can still be triggered to where I cringe and run, or stand and fight. I will never be able to have casual sex, I need an extreme trust and love level. Tell me there is no baggage.

Would I have created this street chick, badass, cursing persona had I not needed armor? Who would I have been had this not happened to me? Is that person still inside me somewhere?

The backlash to Polanski’s arrest says three things to me, things that my own life has proven:

Society turns a blind eye to rape if it can. They just don’t want to hear about it. Its message is that it was “OK” this was done to me. That I should just get over it.

Then, that it can be forgiven as a “momentary lapse” by some “poor” guy. Again making their desire for young girls is our fault, causing their lapse.

Thirdly, that when it comes down to it, people are more interested in the sordid details than justice. They get some sick arousal from hearing the details, and are more interested in the perverse voyeurism than stopping this.

Even my own husband is defending letting it go. He says the justice system fucked up offering, then reneging on some brokered deal. Never mind, the deal was brokered because rich, white, powerful men get different justice in the first place than poor or black men.  

He even said the guy has been clean since. WTF? That we KNOW of anyway. He thinks the duplicitous criminal system is at fault for making a bad deal, and a deal is a deal.

I understand the victim not wanting it rehashed by our perverted tabloid excuse for a press. But seriously, if he is let go and “forgiven” it tells women like me, that it is ok for our bodies and souls to be taken at will by men for any purpose they deem us useful for, including stealing our innocence by force as nothing more than cum receptacles. It makes us feel dirty all over again.

It makes young girls feel unprotected by society. It says if a man has had a hard life, its fine to take it out on us. To rape and sodomize us against our will.

I even read one man who said, “There are 13 year old, then there are 13 year olds… ” then proceeded to tell a story of how hot a fuck-bunny his 13 year old girlfriend was when he was 17.

Were there, or are there girls who lied about their age back in the whole “California Scene?” Sure, just as there were men who chose to believe them, knowing damn well they were 13. There is a HUGE difference between a 13 yr old and a 17 year old.

Now do I think the age of consent should be lowered?  Yes. They key word being CONSENT, and that has NOTHING to do with RAPE.

I can’t say my scars never heal. Women like me learn to compartmentalize everything, wall things off to survive. It never, never goes away completely, though.

This story just reaffirmed to me that my body does not belong to me.

It belongs to anyone who would take it from me, impose their will on me, and whether it be 30 days or 30 years, I should just let it go.

From some male’s point of view, they just cannot figure out what the big deal is. After all, its only sex, and sex ultimately feels good, so whats the big deal?

There are others, like “Thereisnospoon” who blames women for rape, for dressing in ways that make men unable to control themselves, and says women who drink deserve it. “Thereisnorape” indeed.

Others still, have “slipped” a couple times in their life and hit and/or beat a woman, or pushed past a no, or taken advantage of a drunk woman and want to forget that monstrous part of them, be “forgiven” and move on, so think “TIME” passing and good behaviour should acquit them, defend this rapist in some sick sense of self justification.

Then there are the few good men who get it. That defend us. That put away their own horror and queasiness about thinking about the women in their lives being in those shoes and have the tenacity of spirit to speak against this.

But overall, most of society just says, “Shut up already, you’re FINE now, so whats the point,” never knowing our outward appearance of “fine” does not belie our inner pain.

So here we are, moving backwards at the speed of light again.

Let the poor pedophile rapist go, get over it bitches.

Rape us.

Rape us as children even.

Drug us if you have to.

Rape us.

No big deal.

Ancient history.

Not worth the time or money.

Let the rapist just live his life.

We have no power. Men rule the World.

I am just SICK about this, and the reactions I see.

Let the message ring out to girls and women everywhere:



Society does NOT have your back.

25 comments

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    • Diane G on October 1, 2009 at 17:26
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    A HATE CRIME, not sex.

    • Inky99 on October 1, 2009 at 19:35
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    I have to say that IMO most adult men, like myself, are horrified by this, and would never hit or rape a woman.    

    I have never understood rape.   I don’t understand how a guy could want to have sex with a woman who doesn’t want it.   There’s no bigger buzzkill than a woman not wanting to have sex!    One of the greatest parts of sex is realizing the woman involved actually wants to and is aroused!  

    If the woman is not aroused, I’d rather go jerk off than try to continue something.  

    I think most guys are like me, rather than like what you describe and have experienced.

    But the fact is there are too many men who are like you describe.   It’s wrong.   I don’t get it.   And that’s why there are laws against it, and why the laws must be upheld on a consistent level.

    I am now the stepfather of a beautiful 13 year old girl.   If anyone touched her against her will, I would quite likely kill them.

    It makes me sad to think anyone did this to you.  

    I have no problem with Polanski having to face the music.   I am appalled that anyone would defend him.   What he did was really heinous, especially when you hear the graphic details of it.   Also, whoever that girl’s mother is should have been almost equally guilty.   Leaving their 13 year old daughter with this guy, alone, at Jack Nicholson’s house?   Jack Nicholson is a notorious dog, and everyone in Hollywood knows what a decadent guy he is, and how decadent the environment around him is/was.  

  3. pissed me right off by weaseling on the definition of rape. I do realize not all women can and should have the same opinion but…

    I think the hitch is that men with perceived prestige run the show. Dude would have been apprehended and jailed long ago if he was not a pale skinned artist. Some of the justification used by others made my skin crawl.

  4. I posted this yesterday at GOS.  The almost 200 comments imo show how little most people understand either the issue in this particular case (which is fleeing from court process) or the issue that led to the case (which is rape of a 13 year old girl).

    On a personal note.  Diane, thank you for your honesty and for telling what happened to you.  That took courage.

    Years ago, in response to a story like yours (there are far too many of them), I said that if that’s how we men were treating women, and I was afraid it was, I just didn’t want to be identified as a man.  I’d rather be asexual.  I’d rather be a monk.  In other words, I wanted to disown the part of me that might be called “the wild masculine.”  That’s not a good strategy for becoming a whole person.  In fact, it makes the shadow run wild. It fosters abuse through repression.  What’s required to be sane and healthy imo is recognizing that virtually all men have this shadow, they have within their psyche the rapist, the murderer, the liar, the thief, etc.  I have it.  Most men who read this have it.  It’s not a good idea to make believe it’s not there, to say, “Oh, no, I’m not like that.  I’m more evolved, more sensitive than that, I’m not like that.”  That’s bs.  That is a disowning the violence and ugliness we’re capable of.  The truth is that, yes, I’m capable of these kinds of despicable crimes.  I own that.  I’m not going to do any of these things to anyone.  Nothing can make me do them.  But the truth is that all of us have a shadow, and we have to deal with it. When we don’t, we’re unsafe.

    • Diane G on October 1, 2009 at 23:39
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    from my blog, which blessedly just came back up: (with permission)

    my long-winded way of saying “I agree”

    I cannot pretend to understand the depths of the pain, rage, disgust…I don’t even have the right words to describe it….that women feel after being raped.  As a guy, if I got raped by another guy it still wouldn’t be the same. After all, once the crime has been committed I get to go back to being a male in this fucked up society.

    Your message to women and girls was, “Society does NOT have your back.” I wish I could say, “at least the fags do”, but I can’t because it is not true. 99% of the time, a man is a man is a man–regardless if he is an uber-masculine hetero or if he’s gayer than an Easter parade.

    Being at a loss for words, I decided to do what I do best: steal other people’s stuff! The following (long) quote about rape is from The Culture of Make Believe, by Derrick Jensen


       In the Violent Crime Control and Law-Enforcement Act of 1994, Congress defined a hate crime as “a crime in which a defendant intentionally selects a victim… because of the actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.”

       Each year the FBI is required by law to compile statistics on the prevalence of hate crimes in the United States. In 1998, 7755 “bias motivated criminal incidents” were reported by 46 states and the District of Columbia. Of these, 4321 were motivated by racial bias, 1390 by religious bias, 1260 by sexual orientation bias, 754 by ethnicity/national origin bias, 25 by disability bias, and the remaining five were the results of multiple biases. The thing that interested me about all of this is that none of these were exclusively and solely gender-based. I called my local district attorney and asked, if a hate crime is defined as a “crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim… because of the actual or perceived… gender,” why isn’t rape, or, at least, most rape considered a hate crime? Just as James Byrd Jr was chosen to be dragged behind a pickup for no meaningful reason other than his race, so, too, a good percentage of rape victims are chosen for no meaningful reason other than their gender. The district attorney replied that rape is covered under its own law, and it needn’t be covered separately as a hate crime. I told him the same logic would be true for murder.

       “That’s my point,” he said. “There are as many reasons for rape as there are for murder.”He then explained to me that if a man rapes a woman specifically because she is black, it counts as a hate crime. If he rapes her because she is white and dating a black man, it counts as a hate crime. If he rapes her because she is a lesbian, it counts as a hate crime.

       “What if,” I asked, “he rapes her because she is a woman?”

       “Rape by itself isn’t a hate crime,” he said. “It’s a sex crime.”

       “But if the victim is chosen because she is a woman…?”

       “If you don’t like it,” he said, with unwarranted testiness, “take it up with the legislature.”

       Instead, I took it up the FBI. This time I spoke with a woman. Same question.

       She said, “the reason rape isn’t included is that the motivation is obviously different. The motivation is not to violate their civil rights, but from a desire to hurt, or from a desire to just have sex.”

       I asked for the FBI’s definition of civil rights.

       She looked up and said: “the rights belonging to a person by virtue of his or her status as a citizen or as a member of the civil society.”

       I asked for the FBI’s definition of a hate crime.

       She was very patient. She quoted from the FBI uniform crime report: “a hate crime is a criminal offense committed against persons, property, or society, which is motivated in whole or in part by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.”

       No gender this time. One more definition. Rape.

       “Carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.”

       “The definition doesn’t include males,” I said.

       “Interesting, isn’t it?”

       “Okay,” I said. “Let me get this straight. A woman’s, or any person’s, civil rights do not include freedom from unwanted carnal knowledge.”

       “Gender isn’t included as one of the protected classes in federal statute.”

       “What about the inclusion of gender in the Violent Crime Control and Law enforcement Act of 1994?”

       “There’s confusion about what is and what isn’t included. Legislation is pending to include gender as a protected class.”

       “Okay,” I said. “Let’s say that gender were a protected class. With rape then be included?”

       “Again, the motivation is obviously different. It’s not a hate crime.”

       The difference wasn’t so obvious to me. My brain hurt. I hung up.

       –

       Most people acknowledge that at least on the inside, rape is not a sex crime, but a crime of power. In all-male prison, the absence of women forces men to create women, that is, to create a subordinate class, the feminine to their masculine, the submissive to their aggressive, the penetrated to their penetration, to create a class of the fucked.

       –

       I’m glad I was born male.

       There is something interesting about the rate at which men in prison get raped: it’s lower than the rate at which women are raped in the culture at large. Most studies suggest that 25% of women in the United States are raped during their lifetimes, and another 19% have to fend off rape attempts. I suppose you could say that for women — and not just those in prison — rape is “a fact of life.” When a man goes to prison, everyone seems to think: “oh shit, he is going to get raped!” But everyday, women walk down the streets, or stay in their homes, and face that same possibility.

       I don’t know what to make fact that when I do a quick Google search of the Internet using the keyword “rape”, I get far more pornography sites than any other category (rape crisis hot lines, support groups, scholarly analyses, histories, news, and so on). Pornography makes up more than a third of the total sites. And remember, the key word here was “rape”, not sex, body, nude, or even penis, vagina, dick or pussy; we’re talking action, not anatomy.

       I visited some of these sites. Leaving aside the more obvious and routine treatment of women as objects to be invaded (“feeling a little sneaky? Take a tour through a house with a live hidden cams. Watch unsuspecting victims get caught! Shower cam. Inside her toilet cam!”) I was struck by the sheer number of depictions of outright violence against women accompanied by a correspondingly violent — and (sorry to be naïve) disrespectful — ambience. “Nasty little breeders.” “You command the action of these young sluts. Your wish is their command.” “Look at those dirty little Asian sluts.” “Fuck this Asian teenager in every hole.” And there were images of women tied, being struck, with jars or feet or things I couldn’t figure out in their vaginas.

       The point here is not to express outrage at the depictions — though that would be easy enough to do — but to point out once again how slippery is our notion of hate. I strongly suspect that if the photos were not women but instead members of “a protected class” — imagine sites with tens of thousands of pictures of black men bound because they are black, with captions like “you command the actions of these young bucks,” or white men bound and gagged because they are white with captions labeling them “dirty little breeders” — the sites would be recognized as promoting hate. The organizations that monitor hate groups would watch closely. But even the most comprehensive hate watch sites — for example, the extraordinary “Hate Directory,” which monitors even such obscure sites as American Christian Nationalists CyberMinistries Sodomy Information Center, Grendel’s White Power Video Games, and Why Christians Suck — do not count these as hate sites. Truth be told, I have yet to encounter at any of the racist sites 1/100th the crudity or overt violence manifest at these. This is not to say that racist sites aren’t hateful, but rather to point out an obvious blind spot.

       This all leads to a slew of questions. The first and most obvious is, Why are materials depicting (and even reveling in) violence against women not counted as hate propaganda? The second…question is, why are some forms of hate so transparent to us? The third and perhaps most troubling question is, how many more of these “invisible” forms of hate are there?

    Incidentally, didn’t Rick Warren state that marital rape was an “impossibility”? I seem to remember reading that somewhere, but I could be mistaken.

    PS- the first two lines of your post packed one hell of a punch.

    Elián Maricón

  6. No wonder I admire you and your writing so much.:)

    No rapist should be above the law for any reason. Polanski is a rapist. Once is enough to qualify him as such. There is no excuse for his behavior.

    I just read a newspaper account of a 38-year-old man who was found bleeding in the street with his throat slashed. He was only wearing a shirt. It appears he tried to rape a 19-year-old, and she defended herself.

    He is still hospitalized. It’s a hard way to learn the lesson that sometimes victims fight back. I hope he learned something from the experience.

    • rb137 on October 2, 2009 at 05:29
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    My husband thinks RP should rot in jail. (I just asked him out of the blue after I read your diary.) It’s his honest opinion — he is definitely not afraid to disagree with me. In fact, a number of men I know are disgusted with RP, and have been for years.

    What the hell. I figure I’ll tell you folks about this sometime. I’m working on a book about this — violence against women, not RP — which is why I blog around it so much. And it’s why I haven’t had much time to hang around with you folks at blue lately. But more and more of society has your back as every day passes. Don’t despair about this, okay?

    The world is getting better. I promise.

  8. It stays with you forever.  What gets better or worse is your ability to deal with it.  That is all.  What sickens me is that many in Hollywood are actually defending Polanski, as though this was just some minor misunderstanding (pun intended).  Polanski is a convicted criminal, an unrepentant child raper who fled justice and now is finally facing it.  He should spend the rest of his miserable, worthless existence in prison.

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