Gore Vidal Rips Roman Polanski Rape Victim As Hooker, Boston Herald, November 1, 2009

Gore Vidal Rips Roman Polanski Rape Victim As ‘Hooker’

Boston Herald
November 1, 2009

http://news.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/general/view.bg?articleid=1208725&srvc=home&position=also

Samantha Geimer (left) and Gore Vidal (right).

A clergy abuse victim group is calling for a boycott after Gore Vidal called film director Roman Polanski’s 13-year-old rape victim a “hooker.”“People should express their outrage by refusing to buy any of his books,” said Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, calling Vidal a “mean-spirited buffoon.” A boycott wouldn’t hurt Vidal financially, she said, but would “cause anyone else with such callous views to keep his mouth shut and avoid rubbing salt into the already deep wounds of (victims).”

The 83-year-old Vidal recently told The Atlantic magazine he has no sympathy for Samantha Geimer, Polanski’s victim.

“Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s being taken advantage of?” said Vidal, a screenwriter and novelist, who ran in the same circles as Polanski in the 1970s. He said the media pushed a false image of Geimer.

Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 after being indicted for raping the girl. He fled to Europe before he was sentenced. He was arrested in Switzerland in September and faces extradition.