I think this column still falters for two reasons. First, if the argument is that consensual sex between a teen and a 40 year old isn't the same as either forcible rape or sex between a 5 year old and a 40 year old, he shouldn't be using the Polanski case as an example. The evidence of "consent" is at best highly questionable, and there is ample evidence of forcible rape. The plea bargain was entered because it was expedient, as it is in the vast majority of criminal cases, and it doesn't make this case a good example of why "teen exploiters" are different than pedophiles.

Second, the column also fails to show why that proposition is true even outside the facts of this case. Why should the state of a child's body allow a grown man to decide whether she's ready for sex, rather than the child's own mental capacity for consent? That argument runs perilously close to the age-old arguments that rape victims must have "wanted it" because of how they looked. The issue with age of consent should not be what the victim's body "signals to others," as the older column Saletan linked to suggests, but whether there is a capacity for actual, competent consent to sex. Consent relates to mental capacity, not physical.

In addition, the issue of "willingness," as the column describes it, is troublesome. A lack of active resistance isn't the same as willingness or consent, particularly in a relationship where an adult has power and control over the child. In addition, it's not a clear dividing line between pre-pubescent children and pubescent children. Very young children who have been sexually abused will sometimes exhibit strongly sexual behaviors, including even making sexual advances towards other adults. Does that make it ok for adults to have sex with them? Very young children who are abused also don't always resist; they often want to please their abuser because the abuser is a person in a relationship of trust to them - a parent, another relative, a teacher. That could be described in Saletan's terms as "willingness" or complicitness, but it's certainly different from true consent, at least in my mind.

There are certainly arguments to be made about what the appropriate age of consent is, and how to handle different age spans, but it seems to me that it ought to focus on an assessment of when an individual is likely to have the mental and psychological capacity for true consent, not on what others might think about their bodies or their actions.

Finally, if the argument is supposed to be that the perpetrator's intent is somehow worse when it's a very young child versus a prepubescent child, I'd certainly like to see more analysis of that. It's unclear to me what the motivations are for one type of act versus the other - is it really sexual attraction, or is the attraction to control and subjugation (which is shown to be a motivator for coerced sex generally), and how does that relate to the age of the child and how the crime should be punished?

No evidence of force was ever examined in court, so it's off topic to bring that up when talking about what legally should be done with Polanski. Legally, he stands guilty to taking advantage of jailbait.

Your point that rape is rape is rape is rape isn't reflected in our laws, even in today's sensibilities which are considerably more ideologically driven than in the 70s.

I'm rarely with Will Saletan but like him DO see a difference between forcible rape (such as Elizabeth Smart -- aged 14 at the time -- alleges her kidnapper did) and "consensual" statutory rape. It is not necessary to be a rape apologist to see those things as different crimes. There are also different degrees of assault, theft, murder, etc. to take these nuances into account, and rightly so.

All that assumes

Actually, the issues of force are relevant to this case because they're relevant to whether the judge should accept the plea bargain. Polanski fled because of the possibility that the judge was not going to and was going to impose a harsher sentence than had been agreed to in the bargain. To say that it's irrelevant because of the plea bargain is to beg the question of whether the plea bargain was appropriate and should have been accepted or not.

As for the rest, yes there are degrees, the question is what is the right way to think about it and why?

So driving to a house she didn't know, forcing her to ingest drugs and alcohol, and then forcing himself on her annally and vaginally even when she begged him not to don't constitute force? I'd like to know what does.

SHE admits she went to his home willingly, took the drugs willingly and had taken the same drugs before in other circumstances, and that she willingly took off her clothes. Please read the article before commenting.

melbel615:

SHE admits she went to his home willingly, took the drugs willingly and had taken the same drugs before in other circumstances, and that she willingly took off her clothes. Please read the article before commenting.

And the minute that she told him no, none of that matters.