Perhaps, but we not unreasonably see it as behaviour where a man was clearly taking advantage of his position of wealth and power over someone of an impressionable age who's unlikely to be in a position to give meaningfully informed consent. At any rate the "sick old man" accusation made by heckler was pretty well justified on its own terms, even if choosing that exact moment to make it did little to help the cause.
I know nothing of the particular case, but this argument isn't very convincing to me; the existence of a disparity does no work to show that disparity was actually part of the decision making process for the 17 year old in the way you're insinuating. The more we start removing the agency of late adolescents by calling them 'impressionable', the less sensible this conversation becomes, as though nobody can remember when they themselves were once 17, I know I can.
The argument is flawed because we generally tolerate power differences in relationships: men and women (institutional power), certain cases of coworkers of different ranks, an able-bodied person with a disabled person, a depressed person with a mentally healthy person, a suicidal person with a happy person, etc.
There are also a lot of adults who vary, due to personal characteristics or experiences with relationships (or lack thereof) who are far more easily snared into a relationship; the average 17 year old has had many more relationships than I have as a 25 year old, and sexual ones too, usually with peers. If anything, I'm the naive one who would fall into a very convincing snare with an older man.
I'm not attempting to make any sort of legal argument, just positing why it's widely seen as being an especially egregious act of sexual predation (and I'll admit that's how it appears on the surface to me, but ultimately it's up to the criminal justice system to decide).
I simply struggle to see it as an 'especially egregious' act of sexual predation when the facts are on the ground, or rather, obscured and unknown. I'm saying that the assumption that a difference in power is enough to turn a relationship from 'weird but OK' to 'egregious sexual predation' does not always hold, and it's hard to see where it does hold without removing all agency from the 'victim'.
Um, the facts aren't really that obscure or unknown - the evidence Ms Giuffre was a pawn in Epstein's sex-trafficking ring, one that Prince Andrew was happy to take advantage of, is pretty compelling, even if not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Yes, she admitted to being involved in recruiting for it (while under 18), which was almost certainly a decision made out of immaturity, given her role now running Speak Out/Act/Reclaim.
17 is not a child, but a teenager. Yeah, still creepy as hell, still wrong, but let's not mix the two things as it only serves to dilute the meaning and severity of actual child abuse.
