For me, I 100% believe he had sex with her when she was 17, and he knew that she was 17, but I’m finding it harder to accept that she was an unwilling participant. Not saying I’m sure she wasn’t, but the notion that every victim of Epstein was unwilling at the time simply doesn’t bear objective and logical scrutiny, given the numbers involved. Some will have been legal, willing and fully aware of what they were doing; others will have been underage, unwilling and/or coerced and possibly trafficked. The operation will have been much more nuanced than some people will feel comfortable with.
I don’t think anyone observing this through the media, as we all are, can properly evaluate which broad grouping Guiffre falls into. Anyone looking at it from that viewpoint who says otherwise is talking shit.
Does it make Prince Andrew’s conduct any less reprehensible if she was willing? Marginally, I guess, but it’s still iffy as fuck. At that age, girls aren’t capable of making decisions in the same way as they are a decade or so later - and older men should always been mindful of that, the responsibility they have, and the impact it could subsequently have on the girl’s psyche when she looks back on an older man who has taken advantage of that lack of reasoning.
Whichever way you paint it, even taking it at its ‘highest‘ his conduct was egregiously predatory and exploitative.