Preventing Sexual Violence: Notes from Our Blog

By Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | June 15, 2016

Our nation has been engaged in a vital dialogue over the past couple of weeks about sexual violence. The so-called “Stanford rape case” has people talking about risk, responsibility and consequences. It has also shined a light on some of the particular issues related to sexual violence on college campuses.

This seemed like a good moment to take a look at some past posts from the ETR blog addressing the prevention of sexual violence.

Put Prevention Into Sexuality Education

In their post, authors Andrea Gerber and Kari Kesler argue that one of the best ways to prevent sexual violence on college campuses is to bring more emphasis to the topic in middle and high school. This is the approach they used in their comprehensive sexual health program, FLASH.

They suggest teaching explicitly about gender norms, teaching young people to recognize the presence or absence of consent, and resetting norms so that sexual violence becomes unacceptable.

Affirmative Consent: Shift the Culture

ETR research associate Gina Lepore describes the potential for affirmative consent policies (“Yes Means Yes”) to shift cultural norms that have supported non-consensual sex. “It’s time to debunk the myth that sexual violence is a women’s issue,” she explains. “It’s actually a men’s issue.... We would all benefit from wider promotion of healthier approaches to male sexuality.”

Gina also encourages more focus on consent and norms in high school: “It isn’t enough to teach high school students how to say No. We also need to teach them about healthy, safe, respectful ways to say Yes.”

Young People Speak: Yes Means Yes, the Video

Gina filmed a video in which she asks college students to speak about their understanding of affirmative consent. The students she spoke with like the policy, though they admitted some confusion about exactly what it entails. Highly recommended!

Can Apps Make a Difference?

Monica Sun, an ETR Kirby Summer Intern in 2015, offered a review of several apps designed to create greater safety on college campuses. Some apps make it easy to call friends for help. Some allow students to report incidents at local websites. Some have panic buttons or “fake call” features to help get someone out of a troublesome situation.

Coercive Relationships Among Teens Can Shape Adult Patterns

Thao Ha, from Arizona State University, shared some of her research on adolescent relationships. In one study, her team found that some youth “genuinely enjoyed coercive patterns of behavior and displayed frequent expressions of negative stereotypes about the opposite sex.” These youth were much more likely to be engaged in sexual coercion (as victim or perpetrator) in adult relationships.

New Research on Electronic Dating Violence

Relationship violence can also occur in cyberspace. ETR researcher Pamela Anderson reports on some of her research on electronic dating violence—the use of technology such as mobile phones or social media to embarrass, harass or threaten a partner. Yes, young people experience this. And often, young victims do not notify adults about the abuse because they’re afraid their parents will take away their phones or keep them off social media.

Sexualization in Children’s Media

One trend I find particularly disturbing is described in ETR researcher Elizabeth McDade-Montez’s post about sexualization in children’s media.

Her team examined a random sample of episodes from the ten most popular children’s television shows. They coded over 60 different sexualizing behaviors (sexual comments, dressing in revealing clothing, sexual touching). The unsettling outcome? Sexualization was present in every episode they reviewed, with an average of 24 instances of sexualization per episode.

Keep Up the Conversation

I won’t suggest that there are easy answers to these issues. But I absolutely believe we can transform our culture and help young people grow into confident, knowledgeable adults who understand and respect the concept of consent. Rape and sexual assault should not be an accepted part of any culture.

I am proud to work with a team of skillful researchers who are helping us develop evidence-based guidance for making these changes happen.

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Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES is Senior Editor at ETR.