>>280262936
I was gonna write this out but this anon has it right. Though I also think it's worth mentioning that rape (and sexual assault) in general is also a much more personal crime, ie, you're far more likely to know someone who has been molested, raped or SA'd in some way than you are to know someone whose been murdered. Even through the internet, I imagine many (especially younger) people have had situations where creators they've enjoyed have been outed for rape or whatever. It's a crime you're much more often to see in real life, yet much rarer in media, which is opposite of murder. For the average person, murder is completely desensitized and you can have entire movies hitched around brutal killings done by the hero and no one will bat an eye, meanwhile rape is so rare it only will remind them about how common it is in real life.

While objectively it may carry similar weight to murder, if not murder being heavier, culturally the average person is far more sensitive to rape for these reasons, among others. I think it's why a lot of Lynch's work treat the rape of a young girl to be the ultimate evil in his worlds, as it's someone that's so commonplace in life, yet hardly explored.