Both you and Michael Cieply should read the transcript of the victim's testimony before you start opining. The child in question was not "willing". She was drugged with a quaalude, then objected using the word "no" numerous times as she was penetrated orally, vaginally, and anally. At one point she is asked "why didn't you fight?" and she answers "Because I was afraid of him". This is rape as it is defined in every culture on earth, including that of the 1970's. Polanski copped to a lesser plea of statutory rape as part of a plea bargain, but a plea deal doesn't mitigate the fact that the victim was not "willing". You, Cieply (a famously sloppy reporter) and Whoopi Goldberg are united in claiming that this was not "rape-rape", when the rape of a child is the very essence of "rape-rape". (And by the way, as film-sycophant excuses go, "at least she wasn't five years old" is a new low. Well done!)

The fact that the state agreed to accept a lesser plea of statutory rape does mitigate the fact of whether hte victim was willing or not. To me it is clear the victim was NOT willing but that really doesn't matter. The state accepted a lesser plea.

In cases like these the state should side with the victim and not accept or offer lesser pleas but sadly in this case, due to misconceptions associated with rape or the status of the perpetrator, they did.

What jazzguitarman said. The sentence is for what he pleaded to.

If he's convicted of outright date rape by drugging, string him up. But the point of the NYT article, as I read it, is lenience about the offense he pleaded to, which is strictly age-related.

The problem I have with this response is that the column reaches its conclusion that "there's a difference between pedophilia and taking advantage of somebody who's old enough to be interested in sex but too young to judge the physical and emotional risks of messing around" by relying on the probation officer's assesment that the victim was "willing." The column made her "willingness" part of the reasoning for being lenient. But that fact isn't established by virtue of the plea bargain, and it's not a basis for arguing that in general having sex with children too young to understand the risks is generally not a big deal if they are "willing" - the whole point of statutory rape laws is that they are incapable of making that decision. An argument against that should confront why we should or should not allow children to make that decision given their inability to assess the risk, not simply say that a victim is willing because the perpetrator entered a plea bargain.

We don't know what crimes Polanski would have been convicted of had it gone to trial; the fact of the plea bargain does not establish that the forcible rape didn't happen, it means that it was more expedient to allow a plea. And it's only circular reasoning to suggest that because Polanski pled guilty to non-forcible rape, the victim was actually willing and therefore his plea bargain was fair.