Anaris said a lot of my thoughts, and Kwanstein has rounded it up.
One, I don't think we need to be overprotective, even of children. The world isn't all nice and fluffy and by the time they can read and play a game like this, they already know that. Having people deal with these subjects in a safe way like a game, book, play, etc. is probably the absolute best option we have, definitely better than 1st hand experience.
Two, rape is horrible. If you think it is the most horrible thing that people are capable of, think again - we are a lot more creative than that. Do NOT follow this link if you are squeamish or want to sleep tonight, and that's even though the one image in it is perfectly SFW:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/court-taylor-responsible-for-sierra-leone-crimes/ -- quite honestly, if I were given a choice between that and being raped, I'd take the rape any day. And I'm a man, you know what that means. Nevertheless, all these things are horrible and the world could use a lot less of all of them.
Three, rape is part of the game because it is part of war in the setting of the game. From the bible to at least WW2, rape was an official part of the doctrine of warfare, with official orders of mass-rape existing. After WW2 I think it pretty much became officially disliked, but you'd have to be living in a fantasy world to think it's not very much a part of war today.
And finally, I do believe that if this inclusion triggers some in-character interaction and some out-of-character thinking about the matter, we've all done ourselves a service. Ignoring evil things by pretending they don't exist is the worst way of handling them. Unfortunately, it's become the modus operandi of the western world.
