We’ve done this one before a few times.
I think I’m inclined to answer it from a different angle than what I probably responded wtih in previous iterations.
Meaning — of anything — is meaning to someone.
When discussing whether rape is about sex or (only) about power, what we’re discussing is meaning. What rape MEANS. And therefore what it means to someone.
Let us stipulate that it is possible for rape to mean something sexual to the perpetrator, that the perpetrator experiences rape as a sexual thing.
Even if true, that does not, in some fashion, make it OK to suggest that rape victims could prevent or reduce their risk of rape by doing things to be less sexually interesting. Such a suggestion is NOT OK. If you do not understand why it is not OK, let us resort to analogy. Pick the ones you like. They’ll all fall somewhat short because all analogies do but hopefully you’ll get the gist of what I’m driving at here, OK?
Analogy A: Lynching victims in the deep south could have prevented or reduced their risk of being lynched by doing things to prevent being perceived as uppity.
Analogy B: Cartoonists filmmakers and illustrators who have been physically attacked or killed by Islamic extremists for how they portray the Prophet Muhammed or Islam could have prevented or reduced their risk of being assaulted by censoring their art to avoid anything that might upset Islamic extremists.
Analogy C: Gay males who have been attacked and killed by homophobic queer-bashers could have prevented or reduced their risk of being beaten up by those guys by staying in the closet and making sure they don’t exhibit any behaviors that might be considered insufficiently masculine.
Keep in mind that rape victims have generally said that to them rape was not about sex. That it was about violence. However much some rapist may say the victim was “being sexy”, the victim has tended to say she was merely “being female”.
Male sexual behavior is not caused by females. It is caused by males. They’re the ones whose behavior it is. It doesn’t apepar that rape happens only, or even mainly, to the females who dress a certain way (mostly, instead, just to the most vulnerable females regardless of apparel and age) but even if it did, all indications are that if the… let’s say, sexiest-dressed 10% of women were to start dressing less provocatively, it would not make rape decline, not by 10% and not by some lesser figure, but rather instead rapists would simply target whoever they considered to be “dressed sexy”; SOME females would always be more so than some other females. And as I said, there’s no real evidence that this has anything to do with it. I could make a somewhat similar point about “walking in unsafe places at unsafe hours by themselves or with only other women for company”. That’s more specifically a vulnerability factor and ameliorating vulnerability would (eventually at some point) have a bigger effect on the overall rate, but for quite some ways along the curve rapists would just switch their focus to slightly more cautious women if the women engaging in the 10% riskiest behavior suddenly got more cautious.