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Certainly some rape is about power. Someone rich and famous can easily hire the best call girls on the market. They can easily find enough women who will eagerly have sex with them. If they coerce a woman, then it's the coercion that is important to them, getting someone to do what they didn't want to do. Of course it's not solely about power, there are lots of things you can force people to do if you hold power over them. Why sex? Let's look at four situations:
Mr. Big summons Alice into his office, tells her her friend and subordinate Carol is a lousy worker that must be fired if she wants to keep her job. He summons Carol into his office and forces Alice to berate and fire her friend.
Mr. Big summons Bob into his office, tells him his friend and subordinate Dave is a lousy worker that must be fired if he wants to keep his job. He summons Dave into his office and forces Bob to berate and fire his friend.
Mr. Big summons Alice into his office, tells her she is a lousy worker that must be fired. If she wants to keep her job, she will have to give Mr. Big blowjobs every morning.
Mr. Big summons Bob into his office, tells him he is a lousy worker that must be fired. If he wants to keep his job, he will have to give Mr. Big blowjobs every morning.
Situations 1 and 2 are equally likely to happen. But it's hard to image situation 4 if Mr. Big is heterosexual. Or situation 3 if Alice is 65 and overweight. Or situation 3 if Mr. Big is gay. Is it just the sexual appeal of the victim? No.
If Alice is known around the office to be an easy lay, forcing her to fire her best friend is probably better than a blowjob. But if she's religious, married, a lesbian, has refused Mr. Big advances before, then exercising your power to get what you would never get otherwise is a real rush.
Does this apply to every rape? Probably not. Marital rape and date rape are mostly about getting what is "owed": I wined you, I dined you, I am owed sex in return. Or I married you, this means we both gave irrevocable consent to have sex with each other. "Her skirt was too short" rape is similar: she wore provocative clothing that night, laughed at our jokes and touched our arms, she agreed to go to Jake's house to continue the party, she must be a slut, and sluts owe people sex by definition.
Of course, if you squint hard enough you can kinda merge these two rape types: "I am taking what's rightfully mine, either because there's a framework I can use to justify that it is mine, or because might makes right, and I have might aplenty"
OR sexual attraction isn't totally fungible and therefore people will pursue an object of attraction even if it costs more than finding other, attractive people. (And/or people are lazy)
This would also explain why porn stars even exist in the first place. Or why some men pay a premium for certain Onlyfans models when free porn is so abundant. Or why celebrity sex tape leaks or the Fappening - the leaking of the nudes of multiple famous Hollywood stars - was such a big deal.
All these match up perfectly with sexual attraction not being totally fungible but not necessarily with power being a significant attractor (I have no power over Kim Kardashian because I went out of my way to watch her sex tape)
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