Amidst our modern culture nonsexual violence (nsv) will forever be the genie out of the bottle. At this point it's somewhat ingrained and has been amplified, exploited, lampooned, and trivialized in media to the point of almost complete desensitization. Irréversible, as Xfb4 has said was an attempt to perhaps not place the genie back in the bottle but open up a dialog and critical thinking so that perhaps we can begin to see nsv for the horror it is.
One way to achieve this is to place it within the context of an act that we all (judging by replies of this threat alone) can agree is deplorable and void of any possible positive connotation i.e. sexual violence/rape. By placing both acts on the same level the storyteller is attempting to remind us all what crude instincts are still very common place in our fellow man and how we should see all violence, be it sexual or otherwise, as inhuman treatment of one another.
As to why I think IC may find rape so much worse than common phyiscal nonsexual violence is for me a combination of the aforementioned cultural nsv desensitization -hell this board is all about the glorification of a for of entertainment and storytelling that employs the art of fake fighting- and the lack of a corollary between nsv and sexual violence with regards to rape's inherent twisting of a truly loving act.
Sexual violence like rape perverts and twists what we know to be a physically, emotionally, and psychologically positive, gratifying, and some would say sacred act. In mutilating that act into what rape becomes it also mutilates the same love and positive emotional connections. In essence it reduces the sublime into the grotesque and robs the victim -and in this case the audience who watches the victim- of all the positively charged constructs associated with consensual sex and love making.
Standard violence doesn't have that. Violence is violence there's no perversion and corruption of something better/purer that violence destroys. It is what it is. You know where you stand and you know how you feel about it. We can all get a good handle on violence and wrap or heads around it. For lack of a better term it's simple. Thus when comparing the two rape carries a load that we are unaccustomed to dealing with and processing appropriately.
In a perfect world perhaps it would be best to see all forms of violence as shades of the same color and try to reign in the other forms we put out on display. Impossible as that that may be, and with regards to the essence of the original post, if people's creations withing the varying forms of art and entertainment and even social theory can lead to such discussions as we are doing now I must say that it proves in some fashion that the works do produce something that has some merit and therefore have a right to exist, even if it's to challenge that very right to exist, no matter how deplorable some may find them.
To me life influences art and art imitates life, and sadly rape is a part of this life we live, thus we have rape within the contexts of the arts and communications media. Like any other topic or subject matter that we use to convey thoughts, ideas, and emotions between one another the topic of sexual violence and rape is more about how it's presented and the reasoning behind it's use. It's a cautionary topic to be sure and as evidenced by our disjointed opinions will almost assuredly anger or upset someone somewhere regardless of how such displays are handled. Simply put as a topic and subject it's another tool in the tool box of human thought sharing and communication and should be understood that it's only there because it is also a part of genuine human behavior and interaction. In the end I believe it's the "hows", the "whys" and the "what now"s that are the most important piece of the final social construct created upon it employ. Disjointed and rambling but I hope you all get what I'm saying.
