# Gore Vidal calls Polanski victim "little hooker," claims anti-Semitism got "poor Polanski" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 31, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793 "2009-10-31T00:34:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/101 "2009-11-03T20:04:17Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Clyde Tolson (also D.C. interred but Congressional Cemetery) supposedly wanted to be buried next to J. Edgar Hoover- or at least in the Hoover family plot- but had to settle for being buried about a dozen spaces away. Well, that seems right. They were both married to their work. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/102 "2009-11-03T20:12:28Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > I don’t happen to agree. But even leaving that aside, Polanski stipulated at his plea hearing that he knew the victim was thirteen and did not claim that he thought she was any older than that. > > [Link.](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0928091polanskiplea10.html) > > And of course, there is the problem that this became sort of a pattern of behavior for Polanski - after he fled to Europe he conducted an affair with Nastassja Kinski when she was fifteen as well as other less well known teenagers. > > So your call, but it seems pretty cut and dried to me. The court transcripts also indicate that he understood the agreement that had been rendered and the fact that the court’s provisional acceptance of the plea agreement was non-binding. Fuck Roman Polanski and his apologists with a chainsaw. He knew what he was doing before and after the rape, he (or rather, his well-paid legal team) worked the system to get a sweetheart deal, and then he screwed the pooch by getting caught publicly carousing with underaged girls in Europe. If I were the judge, I would have dropped the entire California penal code on his head. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/103 "2009-11-03T20:14:58Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > So your call, but it seems pretty cut and dried to me. Oh, I don’t doubt he did it, just saying that pic doesn’t make the case for you. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/104 "2009-11-03T20:17:06Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > and then he screwed the pooch Given the circumstances that adds all new meaning to “I’m going to get you my pretty, and your little dog!” ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/105 "2009-11-03T22:22:07Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Why is everyone else so determined to paint her as an innocent young victim, is just as valid a question. I’m giving Polanski the benefit of the doubt, because I’ve heard enough stories about teenage “star-fuckers”; what are your reasons for believing her account of the event? In my opinion, people have so much psychologically invested in the “innocence” of children and young teens that they cannot accept the reality that people of all ages including the young can be scumbags or that parents can be scumbags that use their children. Also the statutory rape laws provide a lot of comfort to lazy parents because they think, “I don’t have to police my child’s behavior or teach them right from wrong, I’ll just use to threat of statutory rape to keep other people from having sex with them.” And some women regret they had consentual sex at an early age, so it comforts them to say it wasn’t actually consentual because of their age. Cases like Polanski force people out of their comfort zones. I find Gore Vidal’s statements very interesting because they hint what I have long suspected that there was considerably more going on behind the scenes than the court transcripts indicate. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/106 "2009-11-03T22:26:47Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > And some women regret they had consentual sex at an early age, so it comforts them to say it wasn’t actually consentual because of their age. Cases like Polanski force people out of their comfort zones. I find Gore Vidal’s statements very interesting because they hint what I have long suspected that there was considerably more going on behind the scenes than the court transcripts indicate. Polanski asked her if she was on birth control, and when she said she wasn’t, he raped her in the ass. Does that sound like someone who was consenting? Or a “little hooker”? Read the above link to his allocution. He knew he was assaulting an underage child. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/107 "2009-11-03T22:38:11Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > And some women regret they had consentual sex at an early age, so it comforts them to say it wasn’t actually consentual because of their age. Cases like Polanski force people out of their comfort zones. I find Gore Vidal’s statements very interesting because they hint what I have long suspected that there was considerably more going on behind the scenes than the court transcripts indicate. Did your mother get run over by the idiot bus when she was pregnant with you? _ **By Polanski’s own testimony, he provided Samantha Gailey, known to him to be 13 years old, with champagne adulterated with Quaaludes, and then proceeded to confine her in the bedroom and forcibly engage in oral, vaginal, and anal sex despite her repeated verbal refusal to consent.** _ This is in no way a he-said-she-said debate, nor an incidence of a man unaware of a mature-looking teenager having what he believed to be consensual sex. This was a man who executed a plan to engage in restraint and forcible rape of a young girl, _ **all of which is confirmed by his own testimony.** _ Gore Vidal, who was not at the scene of the crime and knows nothing more than the statements, court transcripts, and whatever unsubstantiated rationalizations come floating through the void of his mind, doesn’t hint at anything other than his own dissociation from reality. You and the other apologists and obfuscationists for Polanski’s cause (to wit: the right to drug and sodomize young girls without repercussion) who have have repeatedly and deliberate refused to acknowledge the bare, uncontested, public facts of the case are really the lowest form of human being; one who will find excuse any offense, no matter how heinous and well-substantiated, as long as it is against your adored figure. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/108 "2009-11-03T22:47:22Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > In my opinion, people have so much psychologically invested in the “innocence” of children and young teens that they cannot accept the reality that people of all ages including the young can be scumbags or that parents can be scumbags that use their children. Also the statutory rape laws provide a lot of comfort to lazy parents because they think, “I don’t have to police my child’s behavior or teach them right from wrong, I’ll just use to threat of statutory rape to keep other people from having sex with them.” And some women regret they had consentual sex at an early age, so it comforts them to say it wasn’t actually consentual because of their age. Cases like Polanski force people out of their comfort zones. I find Gore Vidal’s statements very interesting because they hint what I have long suspected that there was considerably more going on behind the scenes than the court transcripts indicate. Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the WEALTHY MOVIE DIRECTORS?! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/109 "2009-11-03T23:14:10Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Clyde Tolson (also D.C. interred but Congressional Cemetery) supposedly wanted to be buried next to J. Edgar Hoover- or at least in the Hoover family plot- but had to settle for being buried about a dozen spaces away. No idea if they’ve tried burrowing closer together. I would guess that Hoover’s is the most dogshit covered grave in the country. I know they were lovers and all…but anyone who wants to be buried next to Hoover’s got to be batshit. (Hell, anyone who was in love with Hoover had to have been batshit) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/110 "2009-11-03T23:30:22Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I know they were lovers and all…but anyone who wants to be buried next to Hoover’s got to be batshit. (Hell, anyone who was in love with Hoover had to have been batshit) Hijack, but I’d always assumed the Hoover/Tolson affair was common knowledge to D.C. insiders, but a memoir by a longtime FBI agent (I can’t remember who though) implied that amazingly- considering the two men lived together/rode to work and home together/vacationed together/etc., it was _NOT_ common knowledge. He mentioned once going to a very nice restaurant at dinner time and seeing the two of them dining and, having a decent working relationship with them both, basically invited himself to sit down with them. He said the atmosphere instantly turned to ice and he finished his meal only because he felt standing up and walking away would be ruder, but for the next several months if he so much as broke wind in the elevator he could expect to reprimanded severely. That’s what finally made it click to him- he’d interrupted a romantic evening. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/111 "2009-11-03T23:37:57Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Hijack, but I’d always assumed the Hoover/Tolson affair was common knowledge to D.C. insiders, but a memoir by a longtime FBI agent (I can’t remember who though) implied that amazingly- considering the two men lived together/rode to work and home together/vacationed together/etc., it was _NOT_ common knowledge. He mentioned once going to a very nice restaurant at dinner time and seeing the two of them dining and, having a decent working relationship with them both, basically invited himself to sit down with them. He said the atmosphere instantly turned to ice and he finished his meal only because he felt standing up and walking away would be ruder, but for the next several months if he so much as broke wind in the elevator he could expect to reprimanded severely. That’s what finally made it click to him- he’d interrupted a romantic evening. Perhaps he could have made it okay if he had sent Hoover a gift certificate to Victoria’s Secret? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/112 "2009-11-03T23:49:50Z")
As a reminder for anyone who read the Pit Thread (where things got heated and I was a complete asshole to Jodi among others incidentally) I was actually _against_ reopening the case. I still am, but it’s a done deal- my objections though have nothing to do with Polanski as artist or anything like, but primarily the victim’s wishes. That said, regarding the moral character of Samantha Geimer- I really don’t care if she was the most sexually promiscuous thirteen year old since Theodora it doesn’t exonerate Polanski. He’s a rapist (statuatory and otherwise) who deserved his conviction. If she _was_ a “young whore” as Vidal alleges- and I’ve seen no evidence she was- then you can be pretty sure it’s not because she woke up one day when she was 12 and decided “I’m gonna go out and start spreading my legs to get ahead starting now”; she was more likely forced into it by parents and or agents and or producers. She’s still, in other words, a victim. Absolutely nothing in her life for the past 30+ years indicates she’s of low moral character. She didn’t have a series of convictions for scams or possession or prostitution afterwards and she sure didn’t get rich from the ordeal (the most I’ve heard the cash settlement was in the low six figures- not exactly “set for life” money especially after legal fees). She’s a married comptroller with three aged kids- not exactly the fate you’d expect of a remorseless Lolita; if she was a con-artist she wouldn’t be asking the media alone or publishing articles about having forgiven him but would more likely be on air crying about what all he did to her and promoting her book. So even for Vidal- in spite of his claim that he was “in the middle of it” (first I’ve ever heard his name connected with the case)- calling her an underaged whore is low. I hope the old fart’s book flops like a live catfish on hot concrete and that nobody comes to his signing; get whatever trick drives you around to put your long forgotten old ass back in the Isotta Fraschini and take you back to the garish mansion to live out your days. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/113 "2009-11-03T23:52:21Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > She’s a married comptroller with three aged kids- Sort of a Benjamin Button kind of thing? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/114 "2009-11-03T23:56:11Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > Sort of a Benjamin Button kind of thing? She lives in Hawaii, where it’s customary to keep the kids in the basement to avoid sunburn or in case of a sudden tsunami, the same as aging wine. Or I left out the _teen_, one or the other.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/115 "2009-11-04T00:41:20Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > As a reminder for anyone who read the Pit Thread (where things got heated and I was a complete asshole to Jodi among others incidentally) I was actually _against_ reopening the case. I still am, but it’s a done deal- my objections though have nothing to do with Polanski as artist or anything like, but primarily the victim’s wishes. > > That said, regarding the moral character of Samantha Geimer- I really don’t care if she was the most sexually promiscuous thirteen year old since Theodora it doesn’t exonerate Polanski. He’s a rapist (statuatory and otherwise) who deserved his conviction. If she _was_ a “young whore” as Vidal alleges- and I’ve seen no evidence she was- then you can be pretty sure it’s not because she woke up one day when she was 12 and decided “I’m gonna go out and start spreading my legs to get ahead starting now”; she was more likely forced into it by parents and or agents and or producers. If you were straight, I would give you a year’s worth of blow jobs for this post. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793/116 "2009-11-04T02:52:11Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > If she _was_ a “young whore” as Vidal alleges- and I’ve seen no evidence she was- then you can be pretty sure it’s not because she woke up one day when she was 12 and decided “I’m gonna go out and start spreading my legs to get ahead starting now”; she was more likely forced into it by parents and or agents and or producers. Actually, her mom was trying to get a career going in Hollywood at this time herself - she was strikingly beautiful and had already scored bit parts on _Starsky and Hutch_ and _Police Woman_. In the aftermath of this she moved the whole family to Hawaii away from the public eye - the only jobs she took in show business after this were spokeswoman gigs for car dealerships that she had lined up before even moving to LA. [The Secret of the Ourisman Chevrolet Girl.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/17/AR2008061703227.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gore-vidal-calls-polanski-victim-little-hooker-claims-anti-semitism-got-poor-polanski/515793.md?page=5)