this story had potential, with beautiful art and a beautiful ending, but... - the cat had...

I genuinely want to know why authors just put rape scenes for no reason. Not that there should or can even be a reason for rape scenes.

i disagree.
there are very well written stories that exist which deal with dark subjects and trauma, rape can be portrayed in stories its just how the writer goes about it and the writers purpose for showing it that matters.

take berserk for example.
thats an extremely dark manga and a lot of horrible stuff happen in it including a lot of rapes, but rape in berserk is portrayed as something disgusting, traumatizing and dehumanizing, its not something like you see in this story where not only does it serve no purpose to the plot or characters, its also made into a not big deal, and using rape in that way in a story is truly disgusting.

the romanticization of rape is unfortunately not an un-common thing, its almost like a kink and thats the reason why its not un-common to see when dealing with erotica stories specifically.

I understand I meant that they shouldn’t be used then just passed over and excused as the rapist just loving them. I wrote my other response really poorly I’m sorry.

Berserk's rape scenes are absolutely disgusting and gratuitous in the beginning of the story. There is a reason why it is heavily toned down later down the line. Why do you think the rape scenes with the women were always drawn in detail, but the men's rape scenes were always off-screen? The more professional Kentaro Miura became, the more he realized his rape scenes were weird as fuck and toned it down. I lost count the number of times Casca was found in a compromising position and drawn in weirdly detailed way in those situations. You used the worst possible example here. Irreversible would have been a better example here.

you can choose to see it that way but...
i think the men's rape scene aka child rape scene was detailed enough.
the only rape scene i can think of that was really detailed was the one where guts was forced to watch to women he loved get raped by a man who was his friend, so it wasnt for no reason why it was detailed.

and i dont think any of the rape scenes were gratuitous because it all helped illustrate setting of the story which is a dark and barbaric time. its heavily toned down later down the line because the story itself shifts in focus entirely after the band of the hawk get killed.

but tell me with all the issues you have with berserk, how can it possibly be the worst possible example when at the end of the day berserk portrayed rape as nothing but a villainous act.