But Saletan still gets it wrong.

This girl's testimony makes it clear she definitely did NOT want to do...what was done. Polanski used:

1. Drugs and alcohol
2. A LOT of relentless insistence
3. AND, the confusion, and tendency to submit to adults, of a 13 year old kid.

And while the age of physical sexual development has been decreasing lately, there's no evidence that literal maturity, as signified by brain development, has also begun to develop earlier.

The conditions may or may not satisfy requirements for a rape of an adult--it could be said that a an adult victim would have been expected to be clearer about the refusal. But that clarity of refusal might easily be expected to be absent or ambiguous in a 13 year old girl, drugged, and in a situation of being under "adult guidance" by the perpetrator himself.

Good to see someone that can discuss this topic as a mature adult. In my mind 'the conditions' do meet the requirements for a rape, regardless of age (i.e. if she was an adult it would still be rape), but clearly this is NOT a case of child molesation or statutory rape (which is consentual sex with a minor by an adult).

The DA's office is the ones that messed this up by agreeing to the lesser plea of statutory rape but I feel the state needs to honor since it was made and accepted with an agreed upon understanding of the sentencing. Due process is also a value society needs to respect even when a DA fucks up a case.