The reason role-played rape is so much nastier than any other role-played crime, including murder, is that rape isn't really best described as either a violent crime or a sexual crime, but a mental/emotional crime. Rape is entirely a crime of context, degredation, and dehumanization. Under proper conditions, the physical acts themselves might be exceedingly pleasant, so the atmosphere and conditions in which the acts were committed are the true offense.

Role-playing is all about creating context and atmosphere; about opening our minds and our hearts to one degree or another, in order to experience emotionally that which is outside our grasp to experience phsyically. When we engage in role-play, we make ourselves vulnerable to the crime of imagined rape in a way we do not and cannot make ourselves vulnerable to the crime of imagined murder.