Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Juliette Grimmett" <>]

FYI
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/05/08/sex ;
May 8Unwanted Sexual Contact, in Context
The college social scene is the setting or context for much of the
unwanted sexual contact that happens on campuses, as a new report (
http://www.unh.edu/news/docs/2006unwantedsexualexperiences.pdf ;) by
researchers at the University of New Hampshire, exploring the
experiences of the university’s undergraduates, details.“For both female
and male students, unwanted sexual contact occurs where they live, at
social events, and often when the perpetrator and victim have been
drinking. The vast majority of incidents occurs between UNH students,
and an acquaintance is most often the perpetrator,” the report states.

“I think the main point we’re trying to make is that there are
situations in which students find themselves, where they have these
kinds of experiences, and they’re not situations that they would define
as threatening situations,” said Sally Ward, a professor of sociology
and one of five faculty authors of the report, which is based on paper-
and Web-based surveys completed by 2,405 New Hampshire undergraduates,
male and female, in 2005-6.
“It’s part of the normal social scene. People go out and they party and
things happen that they aren’t expecting to happen. That is, we think, a
consistent finding over time in this research,” said Ward.
The report, on “The Context of Unwanted Sexual Experiences” at UNH, is
the latest product of a research project begun in 1988 and funded by the
president’s office at New Hampshire. The university is relatively
unusual (although not alone (
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/07/kentucky ;)) in
tracking, and publicly releasing, campus-specific data on unwanted
sexual contact, defined as sexual situations including kissing or
touching but excluding intercourse, that students knew at the time they
did not want to engage in and communicated that in some way (or
otherwise were incapacitated), as well as unwanted intercourse.
“There aren’t a lot of studies that have followed this for 20 years,”
said Ellen Cohn, a professor of psychology and coordinator of justice
studies who has been involved in the project since 1988.
Overall, 28 percent of New Hampshire women report at least one incident
of unwanted contact, as do 11 percent of men. About 7 percent of women
and 4 percent of men report unwanted intercourse. The researchers find
that, by and large, the contexts for unwanted sexual contact are similar
for women and for men. They do find some differences, however, in the
contexts for unwanted sexual experiences based on type of experience
(i.e. intercourse versus contact) and gender.
Researchers find, for instance, that men are more likely than women to
experience unwanted sexual contact in a UNH residence, while women are
more likely than men to experience it in a Greek house. The association
with alcohol is higher for women than it is for men (though it is high
for both). And men who experience unwanted sexual contact are
proportionately more likely than women to be victimized by a date or
romantic partner (such incidents comprise 19 percent of experiences
reported by men, versus 10 percent among women). Friends or
acquaintances were identified as the perpetrators 53 and 56 percent of
the time for men and women, respectively.
“These differences suggest that unwanted sexual contact is more a
product of the college social scene for women, and more a relational
phenomenon for men,” the report states.
The report also finds that, for women, unwanted sexual contact is
likely to happen as part of the college social scene, whereas unwanted
intercourse is more likely to happen in the context of a date or
relationship.
The report notes that the number of men who report unwanted intercourse
is too small to make any comparisons across types of unwanted sexual
experiences. Male victims were, however, more likely to have used drugs
than female victims (8 versus 2 percent) and more likely to report a
same-sex perpetrator (9 versus 2 percent).
Overall, UNH has found that the number of unwanted sexual experiences
on campus declined significantly from 1988 to 2000, during which time
the university established a crisis center and put a number of
prevention programs in place. However, there has been little change
since 2000 — prompting a need for more creative, broad-based responses,
said Victoria Banyard, an associate professor of psychology and a
co-author.
“We need coordinated community responses. We really need to think about
how to involve everyone, change community norms, change peer norms,
those kinds of things,” Banyard said.
“It’s a hard thing to research, but I think on the other hand, the
national data is very clear that this is a problem on all of our
campuses,” Banyard continued. “UNH has really been a leader in saying,
‘You know what, this is important and we know it’s happening here
because it’s happening everywhere and so we want to understand more
about it.’ ”
“Our prevention efforts are going to be better if we know the specifics
of where we live.”
 

Are you an NCSU student that is interested in being a Sexual &
Relationship Violence Peer Educator?  Then come join The
Movement.Application can be found online at
http://www.ncsu.edu/womens_center/. Please contact Juliette for more
information.. 

 
Juliette Grimmett, MPH
Rape Prevention Education Coordinator
NC State University
Women's Center
3120 Talley Student Center
Campus BOX 7306
Raleigh, NC 27695-7306
Office: (919) 513-3232
24 Hour Sexual Violence Hotline: (919)618-RAPE (7273)
Fax: (919) 515-1066
email: 

 ( http://www.ncsu.edu/womens_center ;)