Frederic Mitterrand, the French Foreign Minister... talked about not only how he used prostitution outright... in Thailand... where the sex trade is just brutal...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8298051.stm

and about how he paid for "Young Boys" at that....

yet it got ignored... until he stood up for Roman Polanski.

I mean... in the united states... taking part in an illegal sex trade... and admitting it yourself... I can't imagine that being ignored for like 4 yers.

How can taking part in an illegal sex trade that outright enslaves people be ignored? 

The article says he denied writing that in his book... it shouldn't be hard to check.

It's not so much that he denied writing it.  But that when he says "boys" he means young men and not things that would consider him a pedophile.

In which he would still be guilty of taking part in slavery.

He doesn't actually deny the paying people who are basically forced into prositituion.  Or that the fact that they were forced into prostitution actually kinda turned him on.

It's definitely true that involvement with prostitutes makes for a bigger scandal in USA than in Europe... to be honest I don't remember the last time I heard about a political scandal involving prostitutes over here.

The thing is... it's Thailand prostitutes.

I mean if someone wants to go to Sweeden or Vegas or something and hook up with a prostitute.... whatever.  But I mean Thailand... most of the prosittues their aren't there of their free will you know what i mean?

It's basically taking part in slavery.

Argh overuse use of the ellipsis, my eyes...

Anyway, I agree Kasz, it is odd how things like that get swept under the rug. I have no idea how it could happen.

But he also insists that he hasn't committed a crime. he insists it was with people his own age. But unless I read the passages in the book myself I can't exactly say what happened.

From the OP link.

"(people) should not confuse paedophilia and homosexuality", the culture minister insisted, describing his actions in Thailand as an error - "without a doubt" - but not a crime.

"Each time I was with people who were my age, or who were five years younger - there wasn't the slightest ambiguity - and who were consenting," he said.



I dunno, this case seems to complex for me to judge without knowing more about the nature of his "sex tourism" and his book.

"Sex tourism" itself is a pretty horrible thing when it comes to Thailand.

Either way he will look bad, if he is a pedophile or not. What I'm saying is that I don't have sufficient information to judge whether he is a pedophile or not, but either way I think he is a sick person. for him this is a "Lose- Lose" situation.

I'll read up on this case a bit later.