Brutally Redundant

Reading a history book the other day, I came across the sentence "She was brutally raped." 'Brutally raped' or 'brutal rape' has become a phrase almost common enough to be cliche, but isn't it redundant? I mean, can one really imagine a rape that is not brutal? What would differentiate a brutal rape from, say, a sympathetic rape?
Brutality is an inherent quality of rape, a necessary condition for forcefully violating another human being. I think if the author had just left it at "she was raped", we'd still have an accurate picture of the wretchedly inhumane behavior to which he was referring.