It was something of a surprise — and a pleasant one for many movie fans — that The Pianist won Best Director and Best Actor at last month’s Oscars. But nobody was surprised that Roman Polanski didn’t show up to accept his award, since he remains under sentence in this country for statutory rape, having fed a 13-year-old girl champagne and Quaaludes and then sodomized her. That was back in 1977; Polanski fled the US in 1978 and has spent the past 25 years in Europe. Public outrage over his crime has long since subsided; the only major media pundit I heard expressing any amazement at The Pianist’s several nominations in weeks leading up to this year’s Oscars was a bemused Bill Maher on his new HBO talk show Real Time. On Good Morning America and Larry King Live, meanwhile, the victim, Samantha Geimer, now 39 and the mother of three children, said she forgives him and wants him to come home.

In the arts, of course, the idea of an older man pairing up with a younger woman isn’t just accepted, it’s encouraged (by men, of course). And if the success of R. Kelly’s new album is any indication, that’s as true today as it was back in 1977. Kelly, who’s widely regarded as the #1 soul man of the new millennium, and the heir apparent to Marvin Gaye’s legacy, is currently enjoying the fruits of a decade’s worth of labor with Chocolate Factory (Jive), his seventh album. Since its release, on February 18, the disc has unseated 50 Cent’s chart-topping Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (Shady/Aftermath) from the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 200, and it’s remained high in the charts despite strong first-week showings by Fabolous’s Street Dreams (Elektra) and Lil’ Kim’s La Bella Mafia (Jive) and a big post-Grammy push by Norah Jones’s Come Away with Me (Blue Note).

But Kelly’s own worst enemy in the year leading up to Chocolate Factory’s release was himself — at least according to the sex-crimes unit of the Chicago Police Department, which found itself in possession of a videotape that’s alleged to show the platinum-selling R&B star having sex with a minor. According to MTV.com, in June of 2002 Kelly was charged with seven counts of " directing the videotaping of child pornography, " seven counts of producing the video, and seven counts of " enticing an underage girl into illicit acts. "

Sound familiar? Well, at least Polanski was smart enough not to leave behind filmed evidence of his crime. Kelly, on the other hand, appears poised to fight the charges — if Polanski couldn’t plea-bargain his way out of a jail term, then it’s doubtful Kelly would have much of a chance, especially when you take into account that before the Chicago sex-crimes unit viewed the video it had already been bootlegged and distributed across the country. It does make you wonder when celebrities are going to smarten up and realize that it’s just not a good idea to leave video cameras running when you’re engaged in, uh, private behavior.

Unlike Polanski, whose films (Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Tenant, Tess) have never centered on sex, Kelly has built his reputation as a soul man on a foundation of playfully steamy songs filled with the kind of barely veiled double entendres and unabashed bedroom boasts that are almost as crucial to R&B as a good groove. And though he does turn the temperature down for parts of Chocolate Factory — one track, " The Heart of a Woman, " is a respectful ode to the struggles of womankind that can’t help coming across as somewhat insincere — there are times when the old devil surfaces. " Ignition, " a tune that rediscovers the all-American pastime of the automotive encounter, features this little nugget of romantic poetry: " Please let me stick my key in your ignition. " Yeah, that’s a little like what it might have felt like to watch Polanski remake Lolita just a year after his arrest. But it’s down-and-dirty tracks like " Ignition " that have made Kelly the star that he is — without them he might as well retire.

Fortunately for Kelly, " jailbait, " as underage women were charmingly referred by ’70s rockers, is considered something of an occupational hazard in the realm of pop music, perhaps even more so than in the world of film. That may not hold much water in a court of law, but the court of public opinion hasn’t come down any harder on Kelly than it did on Polanski.