French politics have recently become quite interesting. And yet again, this has nothing to do with French politics, but everything with French politicians. Frédéric Mitterrand – 67-year-old French minister of culture – has been in a spot of bother recently, after admitting to having paid for sex with Thai young boys
in his memoirs “The bad life”.
Mitterand’s memoirs date from 2005 and the French apparently didn’t really care that much. Or perhaps never got around to actually reading it. If they didn’t, they missed gems like: All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously
and The profusion of very attractive and immediately available young boys puts me in a state of desire that I no longer need to hinder nor hide…as I know that I will not be refused.
Which is to say, Mr Mitterand quite enjoys having sex with young boys who have no way to refuse him. Which is apparently not really a problem in France.
But then Roman Polanski got himself arrested for raping a 13-year-old. And Mr Mitterand defended him. Because he thinks raping a 13-year-old is okay when you’re an artist. (Did I mention Mr Mitterand is also a bit of an artist?) I personally don’t really know where I stand on the Polanski issue. Of course, rape is evil and so is paedophilia and Mr Polanski should serve his sentence, but I do hope to be famous one day and will require impunity of the grandest kind when I publish my memoirs.
But, as usual, I digress. Getting back to French tolerance of raping young boys
, it turns out they weren’t so tolerant after all. In fact, they got mildly worked up about the issue. Not to the point where they are willing to sack a minister for it, but there has been some back-pedalling. Mr Mitterand now says that his memoirs are not actually fully autobiographic. (His lawyers are currently considering which parts he can get away with calling not fully autobiographic). And that when he earlier said young boys
, he actually meant adults
. A mistake certainly, a crime no, nor a fault because each time I was with people of my age, [or] who were five years older than me. There was never the slightest ambiguity – and they were consenting.
Which slightly contradicts his earlier statements about slavery and young boys, but who am I to distrust a French politician. Mr Mitterand now also [condemns] sexual tourism, which is a disgrace.
And he’ll never do it again. That is not a quote, but I’m sure he just forgot to mention that.
One Comment
Complicated topic … It’s quite difficult to take such clear positions.
First, In French, “jeunes garcons” is ambiguous and not the same as “young boys”. Young boys refers to boys before 13. In French, it means teenager before 18, or younger, it depends.
I’d say that “little boys” is from 5 to 10, “young boys” from 10 to 18, and young man “jeune homme”, from 18 to 24 or so.
Second, Frederic Mitterand is a person that “builds up” on words. He exagerates, all the time, about anything. Any event in his mouth is transformed as spectacular, innovative, incredible. He describes reality in an exagerated way.
So … Has he exagerated while describing young men into young boys? I don’t know. He paid for sex, for sure. If he really had sex with young boys, he should be judged.
About Polanski, if he raped a 13 year’s old girl, I think he should be judged, and that’s it.
Let’s not forget that the far right raised this question by reading a chapter of Mitterand’s book on TV, and changed the word “young boys” into “little boys” to make it more scandalous. The far right always intends to drop the confidence into moderate politics.
So I’m careful and waiting for proofs before deciding if someone is guilty.
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