[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Flere821

In terms of fiction, I should add for my opinion. (not that I'd do any of those stuff I mentioned IRL)

Spoiler for discussion:

maybe it's about the violation part. If someone dies then that's it. Torture, which I used as a synonym for pain, is pretty much standard Shounen plot that can be overcome if given enough GAR/awesome. Both death and pain is something that's mostly only physical, but rape can impact the mind more given the Western context/setting (that I was brought up in). I've had this anthropology class once where a case study of a group of women in the Philippines and one of them had a intruder at night, was found out and he escaped. When these woman was talking about the possibility of rape they laughed it off, saying it was just a p**is. They cared about compensation for breaking and entering, but sexual assault wasn't something they saw as horrific as someone in the US might see it as.

tl;dr - probably a different set of cultural values.

Sure, In terms of fiction of course.

Spoiler:

Let me ask you this though, when you see/read a character dies do you go "well at least he wasn't raped..."? Likewise if the character was tortured with whips and sharp knives I'm sure you wouldn't think "well at least they didn't touch his ass..."

In the end when it comes to fiction it's all about exposure; the line between what is acceptable individually simply comes down to 'getting used to it'... And believe me, people can get used to things very quickly. I'm sure there are arguments for why rape is preferred over death or even drug addiction by those that are conditioned by it.... I mean through stories of course.

(Also, all of these things can inflict mental trauma just as effective as rape.... )

Anyway my point isn't that rape is nothing to fuss about, quite the opposite actually, it's that let's not pretend it's any different or 'cheaper' from all the other horrors that could have been inflicted on a character.