It’s commonly said that rapists do not care about sex but that rape is simply a violent crime - no different from a beating or a stabbing, just with a different “weapon” used.
However, I would contest this theory on a few counts. For one thing, while old women, small children, men and so on do get raped sometimes, the vast majority of rape victims are young, attractive teenage girls and women in their 20s.
I actually think it’s dangerous to suggest that an attractive young woman is no more likely to get raped than say an older or obese woman, since it causes certain people to be ignorant of their degree of risk and others to be more paranoid about being attacked than they need to be.
I think most rapes are committed by men with low self esteem and that the underlying biological reason for most rape is a desire to get the victim pregnant. In other words the underlying motives are no different from consensual sex.
While it’s true that rapists probably get off on power, couldn’t the same be said for any sex? The ability to make someone feel good is just as much a form of power as the ability to crush them emotionally.
The kind of rapist that simply hates women and wants to make them suffer certainly exists but I would take a wild guess and say they form the minority of offenders. The freak who throws a woman in the woods and brandishes a knife is very rare compared to rapists who know their victims or use drugs. I would guess most rapists are opportunistic and have a severe lack of both a moral compass and self-worth but aren’t anywhere close to having the mind of a serial killer.
I could be totally wrong but I think this idea that rape is not about sex is mostly political correctness. The idea that rape could be about stealing sex rather than a hate crime offends our Puritan sensibilities. The American mind understands hate well but is gravely offended at such perversion. Which is kind of strange to me - would it somehow make the crime worse in people’s minds if sex was the motive, as opposed to violence?
To me personally, while rape is disgusting no matter what way you put it, I find the idea of it being an act of sexual and genetic frustration much less disturbing than thinking of it as some demonic unexplainable kind of malice. And no, I’m not saying men can’t help it, because they certainly can. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a Darwinian explanation for rape and that we have to introduce supernatural ideas of evil to explain the existence of sexual assault.
I could be totally wrong, but if I’m right I think the myth of rape having nothing to do with sex does a disservice to victims.