...are on a par, mentally and emotionally, with 12-year-old girls. So I agree with you that rape is too harsh if we're talking the "playing doctor gone awry" scenario. Sex is awfully complicated. Uninformed, unprepared and unsupervised children can easily fall into it without any depth of understanding, especially given the surface sophistication of tween* pop culture.

I have a little more trouble if it's part of a violent assault (7-year-olds know hitting is bad), but that doesn't seem to be the focus in this case.

Best regards, Dan--
Mary Anne

*tween: a term of recent origin describing children in upper elementary/lower middle school, approx. ages 9-13, who look up to and aspire to teen culture and behavior, but are still too young and immature to take on the role of experimenter and independence-seeker that is a teen's natural role.