This Sunday’s first reading tells the story of a man who has abused his privileged position of power to sexually violate a powerless woman. In this case it was King David who violated Bathsheba, one of his subjects and the wife of one of his soldiers. The themes of privilege, powerlessness, and sexual violation are at the forefront of a sexual assault case that has gained wide attention, involving a Stanford University star athlete who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman at a fraternity party.

“How else can David reply but how he does, full of shame? ‘I have sinned.’ And this simple admission of guilt is his salvation, and is what turns a would-be monster into the greatest king Israel ever knew.”

In a nationally representative survey of adults, 37.4 percent of female rape victims were first raped between ages 18-24. And in a study of undergraduate women, 19 percent experienced attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college.