terça-feira, 4 de agosto de 2015

Once upon a time: date rape was not really rape in the 30´s...


I was reading this blog entry on Robert Matzen and suddenly became aware of this "she said/he said" tale of sexual abuse in Old Hollywood.

If the Bill Cosby scandal taught us is that, even today, a woman has lots to lose in opening her mouth to accuse a man of rape. God, even if they are legion, chances are they will not be heard. Cosby knew that pretty well, was counting on that, and almost got off the hook. 

But today we have the illusion of gender equality, so woman do try and speak out more. They are becoming more and more aware that rape should be reported, no matter what, and that the rapist should be the one feeling ashamed. 

Why is it so easy for a woman to understand that Loretta might be telling the truth, and for several men  to doubt it? 

I think I know the answer: first, to accuse a man of rape is really a serious thing to do and should not be taken  lightly It is not only a crime, but is a testament to inadequacy. All the pieces I read  so far written from  their standpoint try to rationalize the situation, breaking down facts and old anedoctes, behind the scenes tell tales of Old Hollywood that we simply CANNOT verify, all in hopes to save  Clark Gable from becoming known as a rapist. Second: men have a hard time trying to understand the contradictory nature of the female relationship with sex. 

I will not go out and say " Loretta is telling the truth: men are basically pigs and she was the one that had to carry the secret and shame" simply because there is no way to know. She was very religious, but she was also  a young, beautiful woman in Hollywood, already with a marriage dissolved before she turned 20. The assumption being that she was not that innocent, that she was, in fact, a hipocrite. It might well be the case of an old woman, looking back and trying to rewrite her life story, apologize her mistakes and justify her actions using another lie to cover the other lies she already told.  But I would like to take a look at the information we KNOW as fact and play a bit of detective with it, and not simply list some " witnesses" for her indiscretions and conjecture about Loretta´s reasons for yet another cover up.

1) THE BABY:

It would be stupid to assume when fecundation took place in this case. What should be considered is that if Judy Lewis was full term and what that means.

For what I read through all theses years, she was born healthy and on term. But babies can be born with 37 weeks and be healthy; or they can be born after 42 weeks and be okay too- my case! So we have a 5 weeks period that the description of a " healthy baby girl" would fit. 

2) THE LORETTA VERSION:

According to the Buzzfeed piece, during filming of " Call of the wild" Loretta admitted of flirting hard with Clark Gable. She also said openly that acting was a bit like falling in love with your screen partner. Now, let me tell you: beautiful girls are, usually, teasers. They want to know they are desired, but that does not mean they want to have sex. In this scenario she paints, she was comfortable with him from the get go; she had flirted hard and "nothing had happened", so she felt everything was under control. In this case she would invite him over to her cabine, not expecting to have sex; she had said no; he did not listen. 

Now, let´s make it clear that a woman at that time, even a "sophisticated " woman at that time, would not consider using the term " date rape" for this scenario. Not at all: for this woman, she simply had played a game and lost. Or, if we are talking about a woman with religious belief here:in this case she would feel as she was the wicked, that she had led a good man ashtray. 

3) THE AFTERMATH: 

Years earlier, silent screen actress Barbara LaMarr had bore a child out of the wedlock and later adopted him; Constance Bennett did it too, to avoid a dispute with her then ex-husband. So, what Loretta did was not new at that point, but what makes it remarkable was that she did it motivated by religious beliefs and that the father of the baby in question knew about it and washed his hands. 

4) THE " WHAT THE F..." Factor

Now, Loretta and Clark might have even carried an affair after the alleged rape happened. And this is not to surprise anyone either, but I do doubt it. She was raised in a town where a movie like  " The sheik" was basically sexual education to young girls. 

The sad part is that we will never know many women of that time had actually married their " rapist" after the steady boyfriend had simply mistook "red" for "green"? There was such a crime called " seduction" in the 18th, 19th century context, which can vary pretty much from "back alley rape" to "consensual sex" and, most of the time, the family of the offended woman would actually force marriage upon both parties. 

5) Conclusion: 
We will never know what happened. But instead of writing an open letter asking people not to talk about the past, why can´t we simply keep on discussing why we simply  find it too hard to give credit to what a woman is telling us?

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