The Pill, along with the “make love, not war” generation of the Vietnam years, propelled Western societies from their quiet quasi-Victorian 1950s lagoons to a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah within a decade. The solemn pillars of misdeeds buttressing society’s moral edifice either crumbled or metamorphosed into “choices” one by one:
* Divorce “progressed” from a scandal that cost Nelson Rockefeller his political career in 1964 to a statistical commonplace (about 50% for first marriages in the U.S.);
* Pre-marital sex changed from a taboo to standard practice for teenagers (including Polanski’s 13-year-old victim);
* Adultery was reduced from a grave marital misconduct to an irrelevancy in no-fault divorce;
* Fornication grew from biblical prohibition to fashionable spouse-swapping venues at Plato’s Retreat and, eventually, the Internet;
* Abortion turned from a crime into a civil distinction (a medal for Dr. Morgentaler); and
* Homosexuality from a love that dared not speak its name into one that couldn’t shut up about it.
None of this mitigated what Polanski did, but by the time he was detained in Switzerland, his misdeeds were virtually the only sexual offences left. The rest became human rights. Polanski’s pillar was holding up society’s edifice of sexual mores. When Hollywood tried to knock even this one down with Whoopi Goldberg’s “rape but not rape-rape” plea, something snapped. The next thing on the screen was a lynch mob — and dumb me, with nuances about ages of consent.
H/T John on Life
