You sit in a courtroom. You have just been poked and prodded from head to toe, inside your most private areas. Photos were taken. Notes were written.

Now, you face a judge, probably one of the opposite gender. You turn. You see a jury. Also your opposite gender. The lawyers are of the opposite gender too.

“What were you wearing that night?” they ask. “Were you drunk? What is your past sexual history like?”

Why are they asking this? you think to yourself. What does this have to do with the fact that I was raped?

But the lawyers and the judge and the jury and the people in the crowd seem to be very keen to hear about who you last slept with. So you tell them, cringing.

At the end of the trial, there are two scenarios: either your abuser gets jail time, or he or she walks free. Either way, you were the one up on the stand who bared your soul. You were still the one asked what you were wearing. You were still the one asked if you were drunk.

For the rest of your life, those who know you will remember this trial every time they see you. You’ll constantly feel like you’re under scrutiny.

This is the life of a victim of sexual assault.

Each year, 321,500 people are sexually assaulted according to RAINN, the United States’ “largest anti-sexual violence organization.” This number comes from the U.S. Department of Justice. Only about 15.8 to 35 percent of these rapes are reported, according to the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

This means that a large number of women live with the terrors of sexual assault while their abusers walk free.

Some of these women who have only recently come forward (years after their sexual abuse took place) are the 24 women who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault.

And, yes, some people do falsely accuse people of rape. But before people deny Trump’s sexual assault, let’s look at some statistics:

1. According to Roger Williams University and Stanford University, only 2 percent of rapes are falsely reported.
2. According to Slate.com and the National Review, 8 to 10 percent of rapes are falsely reported.

I’ll be pessimistic here and say that 10 percent of women who accused the president of sexual assault are lying. That cuts out 3.4 people. So 21.6 people truthfully accused President Trump of sexual assault. And if they are lying, doesn’t the scenario I previously described sound extremely unappealing to someone who hasn’t actually been assaulted?

David Lisak of the University of Massachusetts and Paul M. Miller of Brown University School of Medicine conducted a study about repeat offenders of rape. Their results “mirror those from studies of incarcerated sex offenders, indicating high rates of both repeat rape and multiple types of offending.” This means that if someone has sexually assaulted someone once, they are likely to repeat the crime.

This applies to all people, both President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton included.

However, let’s think about when all of Trump’s accusers made their accusations. All of the allegations came when Donald Trump was a celebrity. In our society, we treat celebrities like gods, they can get away with anything.

Trump even backs this statement up:

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything …Grab them by the p***y … You can do anything.”

But, this is a sports column. What relation does this have to sports?

Well, to start, according to a study published in the 2016 “Violence Against Women” journal, about half of male college athletes admit to engaging in “sexually coercive” behavior, like rape or sexual assault.

Sports themselves call upon primitive urges, like fighting and besting someone else. Sexuality, it seems, is tangled around in that.

Yet, our culture treats our athletes in the same way it treats our celebrities. “You can do anything.” Right, Mr. Trump?

Today more than ever, we need to teach our men to respect and value women, not to rape them. We need to teach them to compartmentalize their competitive edge when off the field. They need to understand that rape is not okay and that I, as a woman, am human. Just like them.

This brings me to my final point. We need to lead this change by example. If Donald Trump can sexually assault woman and his consequence is becoming president, how can we convince our athletes that rape is wrong?