Rape

[Mothman]

I'm wondering, what is the general leftist explanation for the cause of rape? Aside from sexism, what have left wing theorists in the past proposed about it? Someone once said that from the Marxist point of view, all crime is caused by poverty and economic problems, so Marxists had no way to explain crimes like rape.

[Ocean Seal]

I'm wondering, what is the general leftist explanation for the cause of rape? Aside from sexism, what have left wing theorists in the past proposed about it? Someone once said that from the Marxist point of view, all crime is caused by poverty and economic problems, so Marxists had no way to explain crimes like rape.
Rape is a ultimately a crime of violence. A crime brought on by forcing one person into a position in which they are dominated through the anger of the person who dominates. While this may in part be facilitated by the alienation of labor and exploitation, the ultimate blame lies with the rapist. Rape cannot be understood from a strictly Marxist point of view, because it is not a crime which can directly be seen as coming from material conditions which is why we consider psychology and the facilitation of rape through social conditions such as the culture of rap and the patriarchy.

[jake williams]

I don't think "rape" constitutes a unified category.

Historically "rape" has had all sorts of definitions that look little like major modern definitions. It's been a synonym for kidnapping, and it's been, basically, a property crime against men. It's common now to use the term "rape" to refer to any non-consensual sex, so I'll try to use that. If you have a different definition in mind, please clarify.

Non-consensual sex itself incorporates all sorts of things, especially if we're willing to use an even broader "less-than-consensual" definition - sex where one partner may or may not be consenting, may not be able to consent or not consent, and so on. Sexuality is extremely complex, as is, for that matter, consent.

In general though, we live in a society where men are basically taught not to care about what women want from sex. Men are taught that women don't really want sex, but that they should try to get it anyway, and it's up to them to figure out ways to convince and cajol women into nominally consenting. In some cases, even nominal consent is granted relatively little importance. It's probably fair to say that most non-consensual sex is a result, basically, of this.

If you're instead asking about random violence by strangers, I think it's something a bit different. Whoever told you that Marxists believe that "all crime is caused by poverty and economic problems" is mistaken. There's pretty reliable evidence that biology (in some interaction with society), at least for now, does produce people with mental illnesses that do sometimes create random violent outbursts. There's no reason to believe that there aren't simply people, including some serial killers and rapists, who have severe psychological problems causing them to do random violence. Violence which has a tenuous relationship to poverty, but also violence which is meaningfully distinguished from the everyday, socially-sanctioned disregard for consent. I do think they're two different sorts of problems that need to be looked at differently.