Two pivotal scenes in Ayn Rand's most famous works of fiction revolve around the "sexy rape" of the lead female characters. In The Fountainhead, it's Howard Roarke's rape of Dominique, with whom the sexual chemistry is so sizzling, he needs to break into her home and take her by force. From Amanda Hess's transcription:
She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He moved one hand, took her two wrists and pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.…She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He was laughing. There was the movement of laughter on his face, but no sound.…Then he approached. He lifted her without effort. She let her teeth sink into his hand and felt blood on the tip of her tongue. He pulled her head back and he forced her mouth open against his.
Of this scene, Rand has said "if it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation," presumably because Dominique had flirted with Roarke beforehand. A lot. Rand also wrote in her letters,
But the fact is that Roark did not actually rape Dominique; she had asked for it, and he knew that she wanted it. A man who would force himself on a woman against her wishes would be committing a dreadful crime. What Dominique liked about Roark was the fact that he took the responsibility for their romance and for his own actions. Most men nowadays, like Peter Keating, expect to seduce a woman, or rather they let her seduce them and thus shift the responsibility to her. That is what a truly feminine woman would despise. The lesson in the Roark-Dominique romance is one of spiritual strength and self-confidence, not of physical violence.
In Rand's view, not raping a woman is apparently what hurts her, by shifting responsibility for seduction to her. This. Is. Terrible. And I say that as someone who, again, has enjoyed Ayn Rand's books and really really wishes her views on gender and sexuality were any measure less messed up than they are.
In Atlas Shrugged, Dagny and John Galt finally consummate their unspoken affection (which exists because she is the smartest, most capable woman around and he is the smartest, most capable man--except for Francisco D'Anconia, who always seemed pretty awesome to me, but somehow didn't deserve her) when he tracks her down in a train tunnel, sneaking up on her from behind. As a teenager, I didn't know how to read this scene. Now I see it as rape, pure and simple.