His crime was just sex

What if he left the country to avoid prison?

What if he not only admitted his crime but whined to a reporter that although America has a "wonderful" Constitution, it needs to get its "puritanism" under control?

Would you bestow upon him your profession's highest honor?

You might if you lived in Hollywood.

Perhaps 1977 seems like too long ago to matter.

Perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Perhaps professional brilliance overshadows every unsavory thing an artist does personally.

Perhaps Hollywood is even more out of touch than the stars' Oscar get-ups suggest.

Admittedly, when a friend said, "You have to write about Roman Polanski winning Best Director -- it's outrageous!" -- I balked, even though I'd found Polanski's win for "The Pianist" over never-honored Martin Scorsese ("Gangs of New York") surprising.

But c'mon, Oscar is a joke. Everyone knows that Academy Awards are given to artists for turning in the year's best work -- and for their popularity, lengthy career achievement and past nominations. Oscar isn't a sports competition with clear winners, I shrugged -- it's opinion.

Then I read the grand jury testimony of Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, on http://www.thesmokinggun.com. In it, she said Polanski, then 43, first asked to take pictures of her for French Vogue. Transporting her to Jack Nicholson's home, he photographed her nude, gave her champagne and part of a quaalude, and performed "cuddliness" -- her childish term for oral sex -- on her before raping her.

Polanski, who now lives in France, couldn't retrieve his Oscar. Setting foot on U.S. soil would mean his immediate arrest. After pleading guilty to one felony count of having sex with a minor, the director jumped bail when it seemed a Superior Court judge might reject an agreed-upon "time served" deal.

Geimer, now nearly 40, wouldn't oppose Polanski's return. Though he "did something awful," she wrote in a Los Angeles Times article asking that "The Pianist" be judged on its own merits, she harbors "no hard feelings" for Polanski. "He is a stranger to me."

Maybe he is now. But back in 1977, he was like most rapists, two-thirds of whom know their victims. Silver Spring, Md., resident Lori S. Robinson was different -- she didn't know the two men who in 1995 raped her at gunpoint. No one was charged.

Robinson turned her horror into an instructive new book, "I Will Survive," which offers resources and advice to victims of sex crimes -- particularly black women, who are raped at a higher percentage than white women and who are less likely to report the attacks.

The author sees similarities between Polanski and singer R. Kelly, whose indictment in June on 21 counts of child pornography didn't keep his new album from instant-hit status. "People trivialize rape, period," Robinson suggests. "But stars are elevated to an almost godlike status."

Clearly, the public often views a performer's art as separate from his behavior. "But if your child is victimized, is art still just art?" asks Robinson. "Eighty percent of (rape victims) experience post-traumatic stress disorder, which is usually associated with war combatants.

"People just don't understand how devastating rape is."

Still, a standing ovation for a man who admitted having sex with a girl so young most people would forbid their 17-year-old sons to date her? Astounding.

I needed an artist's view. Deb Gottesman co-founded the Theatre Lab, Washington's largest theater training organization, whose Life Stories program helps disadvantaged people -- including prisoners -- transform their lives into stage and screen pieces. No wonder she's "a huge believer in second chances for those who've faced the consequences of their crimes."

Polanski hardly qualifies. Even a convicted murderer "who went through the penal system, repented and then won an Oscar" could deserve applause, Gottesman suggests. Polanski, however, "skirted this country's judicial system."

How can he deserve our country's highest directing honor?

Ironically, "The Pianist" eloquently portrays the horrors that can result when every human's inherent worth is ignored or denied -- even, presumably, that of nubile girls. Even if it was the year's best-directed movie, which is debatable, Gottesman wonders, "Why is Hollywood still giving (Polanski) this opportunity?"

Because his crime was "just sex," an act that nearly everyone enjoys and that -- unless weapons, bruises and/or a nun are involved -- many people have trouble envisioning as criminal.

But a 13-year-old can't be confused with a grown woman -- or even a mature teen. Physically, mentally and emotionally, she's a child. Sex with children cannot be condoned or -- without apology, regret or appropriate punishment -- forgiven.

No matter how well you direct.