you summarized it so well that i'm even bookmarking your post!
I love when the rape scenes are not sugar coated. I'm a rape survivor myself and even though it's hard and painful to see that kind of scenes, i like them to be realistic, so ppl know consciously what's happening out there to a lot od other human beings, just like them.
Yes. It brings awareness but it should never be glorified or normalized.
And it should shock or at the least make people uncomfortable. Not be made into some fetish.
There's a huge responsability on a lot of mangaka's shoulders too, bc there are way too many stories where you can find that unacceptable culture of, "when someone says 'no', it means 'yes', he or she's just not honest about his or her desires" and then what is in fact rape is (wrongly) depicted as pleasurable to both parties. I really believe that empathy doesn't come naturally to most people, it's easier to be selfish and indifferent, so it's like a "perfect" match of two careless attitudes (by mangakas and readers). My favorite mangas are usually those where you can see that awareness you mentioned on the mangaka's part.
Yes! EXACTLY!
Because majority of the yaoi/BL mangas had rape scenes that normalized it, most of us readers including me was and some still are pretty desensitized to it now. But re-reading this manga from the beginning and seeing the brutal attack on Yuuto made me realize just how fucked up that was. When sexually inexperienced people watch porn, they probably think that's how real sex is, and that is very unfortunate. But if people get desensitized or glamorize even, the act of such violence in lgbtq relationship/sex in real life, that is dangerous.
Jealousy and controlling behavior isn't sexy! And it's definitely not LOVE. Nor is rape.