DEUT1448 Sexual abuse is also the source of much embarrassment. The Torah makes this exceedingly clear (this and next verses). Fight the special justification the woman had for shaming her husband's assailant, the Torah demands drastic steps in retribution for the degradation she caused--although the Rabbis transformed this to a monetary payment that she had to pay. (Sifre on Deuteronomy 25:12; compare M. Bava Kamma 8:1 and B. Bava Kamma 83a, 86a-b, 28a, etc.). (Incidentally, note that, as the Torah recognized, feelings of shame and embarrassment are experienced by men who are sexually abused just as much as they are by women.) The Talmud, when determining the payment to be exact it for the shame involved whenever one person assaults another, uses this case as the paradigm for what embarrassment means. We are humiliated when we are sexually abused – even just touched in our private parts against our will--four we feel that our sense of self has been invaded, that our honor has been compromised in the most fundamental way possible.