Letter to the editor: PAVE debunks myths during sexual assault awareness month

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, or SAAM. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) has a goal during the month “to raise public awareness about sexual violence and to educate communities on how to prevent it” and they recognize that this is only possible with help from others. As a part of the group PAVE, it is our hope to get students on our campus to know what sexual assault is.

PAVE, Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment, is a student advocacy group on the UW-Madison campus dedicated to ending sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking through education and activism. With this mission in mind, and specifically because April is SAAM, it is important to know that sexual assault can occur in many different forms and that victims and survivors have many resources to help support them. Moreover, students should also know that not everyone’s experiences are the same, but are valid nonetheless. Especially on college campuses, it is necessary to know that there are no cookie-cutter sexual assault experiences. Therefore, it is pertinent to debunk myths that people typically have about sexual assault.

For instance, one of the most talked about myths is that most assault occur at night because someone is walking alone or is walking somewhere they should not be. However, according to NSVRC, about 55 percent of rape or sexual assault victimizations occur at the victim’s home while another 12 percent occur at the house of someone they know well. It is important to remember that a person can indeed be victimized by someone they know, including an intimate partner, and their experience can still be equally as traumatizing as if the assaulter was a stranger.

With that said, it is also necessary to note that everyone responds differently to trauma. For example, some people may respond with laughter, some by crying, and some people will not know how to react and may show no emotion. Another big myth that NSVRC is trying to bust is the idea that wearing revealing clothes, drinking a lot, or behaving provocatively means that the victim was “asking for it.” This is never true, because it is never the victim’s fault. Behavior and clothing never imply consent to a sexual activity. This is important to remember when living on a college campus, especially one like UW-Madison where the drinking culture is so predominant.

According to national surveys, about 20 percent of female-identifying college age students experience a sexual assault during their time in school. The most recent numbers on sexual assault reporting for UW system campuses is from the 2014 calendar year’s University of Wisconsin System Annual Report on Sexual Assault and Harassment. In that report, UW-Madison totaled 172 of the 461 reported sexual assaults. In a perfect world, this number would be zero. But we do not live in a perfect world, so the best we can do is work together to lower the numbers. Our culture, especially with the party culture that can be seen on college campuses, expects sexual assault to be an issue. It does not have to be, though; it is possible to change the current culture. If everyone works toward a new environment in which there is fewer sexual assaults, we can start to talk about a culture without sexual assault at all.

There are resources right here on campus for victims of sexual violence. University Health Services has several programs, such as UHS End Violence on Campus (EVOC), Counseling and Consultation Services, and Medical services as well. There are also helplines available for survivors and their loved ones: National Domestic Violence Helpline (1-800-799-7233), National Sexual Assault Helpline (1-800-656-4673), UHS (1-608-265-5600), and the Dane County Rape Crisis Center (1-608-251-7273). All of the above resources are confidential. For more information on local and national resources, please visit  pave-uw.com. 

Shay Jens is one of PAVE's active volunteers, and is a sophomore at UW-Madison studying gender and women's studies with certificates in criminal justice and LGBT studies. Do you have something to say about Sexual Assault Awareness Month? Send all comments, questions and concerns to