For the purposes of my rant, I’m going to assume that most of you know the basic details – he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl in the late 70′s and than ran away to another country to avoid imprisonment.  Here’s his original plea agreement if you feel like indulging in a lengthy, disturbing read.

A warrant has been out for his arrest ever since, and he was recently arrested in Switzerland.  Which for reasons I can’t begin to fathom has prompted outrage from some in Hollywood.  Here’s a copy of a petition signed by a bunch of Hollywood types who apparently think it’s OK to rape children, as long as you are a gifted enough filmmaker, or enough time has gone by, or you were just minding your own business at a film festival in Switzerland.

Woody Allen signed it? Shocking.  Because, you know, he’s one to talk….  oh, never mind I’m getting distracted.

I’ve heard people say the crime was so long ago, and the victim has forgiven him.  Good for her, that’s fantastic. (No, I’m not being sarcastic).  But can we stop and consider that she’s had 30 years to get to this point? 30 years that hopefully included therapy and support from loved ones?

Right now, we’re reading and hearing the thoughts of a mature woman who’s had a very long time to deal with what’s happened to her. Maybe if the face of his victim were a scared, crying teenager, this would be playing out a little differently in the media.  Would it help anyone to consider that’s exactly what she was when this happened to her?

But you know when I really got stabby?  When I heard someone ask, “Yeah, but was it really rape rape?” And this particular caller was questioning how much of a rape it really was if she was drugged and didn’t remember much of it.  Another caller suggested it was her fault for being there in the first place and making herself  “available”.  Another suggested that you know, some 13 year olds do look a lot older than their age.

(UPDATE: Ok, about 20 minutes after I posted this, I saw the you-tube clip of Whoopi Goldberg defining rape for us.  Gah, I wish famous people would use their power for good.  How many others besides the radio show calling tool went around quoting this as a good argument yesterday?)

As much as I wish they would, I’m not naive enough to think that everyone in our society has moved past this blaming the victim mentality, especially in rape cases.  But as awful as it is to suggest a woman was to blame for her rape, now we’re going to blame children.  Children? Really?!?

Which brings me nicely to my next point.  Lots are asking “Well, where were her parents?”  True, that is an excellent fucking question.  Someone should have been there to say, “No, you are NOT going to Jack Nicholson’s house to do drugs and have sex with old men.  Now go to your room, young lady.”

And even if she had been blessed with parents who might have prevented this? Let’s say for the sake of argument, she defied her parents and snuck out and went anyway? Because you know, I never lied to my parents, or did shit I wasn’t supposed to when I was a teenager.   *rolls eyes*  Is it still her fault then?

NO.  Because she was a fucking child.  This is why we have those things called, you know, laws.  Laws that say a 13 year old is not capable of giving consent.   Laws that say it’s wrong for adults to have sex with children.  Laws that he broke.

It shouldn’t matter that he broke them so long ago.