Prevention & Peer Support

1. It's okay to know your boundaries and to speak up about what you want and what you do not want.
2. Know your limits. How far do you want to go with a date?
3. Communicate your limits clearly.
4. Back up your words with a strong voice and body language.
5. Respect yourself. Know that what you want counts.

A healthy relationship supports both individuals in being their true selves. Unhealthy relationships limit, manipulate, or harm self-identity. Be honest when assessing these key factors:

• Mutual respect: Value each other for who you are, not who you want the other to be.
• Trust: Share thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or harm.
• Honesty: Be truthful and trust in your partner's honesty.
• Support: Help each other be your best selves.
• Fairness: Ensure equal give and take in the relationship.
• Separate identities: Maintain your individuality.
• Communication: Take time to listen, understand, and express yourself clearly.

Guidelines for a healthy sexual relationship:

• Always ask for and receive clear affirmative consent before initiating sexual contact.
• If someone is incapacitated by alcohol or substances, they cannot give consent. Initiating contact in such cases is abuse.
• If your partner expresses uncertainty or says no, stop immediately. Healthy relationships rely on ongoing communication and consent.

Unhealthy or abusive relationships
Abuse can take many forms, including:

• Sexual Violence: Engaging in sexual activity without affirmative consent.
• Intimidation: Using actions or gestures to create fear.
• Emotional Abuse: Name-calling or humiliation to degrade someone.
• Isolation: Restricting interactions to maintain control.
• Minimizing/Denying/Blaming: Downplaying abuse to make the victim doubt themselves.
• Dominance: Controlling decisions and treating the other as inferior.
• Economic Abuse: Restricting access to money or resources.
• Coercion/Threats: Using threats to control behavior.

Bullies have always existed, so why is it important to address cyberbullying? In a nutshell, it can be extremely detrimental to the victim's physical and mental health and, in some cases, possibly deadly. 

Since cyberbullying allows the anonymity of bullying from a distance, it can also be easily hidden from parents, friends and school administrators and adds an almost invisible dimension to the traditional face-to-face bullying that can be hard to detect and address.

• Create Safe Spaces: Establish confidential environments where victims can share experiences without fear, like support groups or safe zones.
• Educate Peers: Train peers to recognize trauma, listen empathetically, and respect boundaries.
• Promote Bystander Intervention: Encourage peers to act when witnessing dangerous situations, either by stepping in or seeking help.
• Support Peer-Led Initiatives: Fund peer-led groups that focus on sexual assault awareness and survivor support.
• Foster Belief: Promote the importance of believing survivors when they come forward.
• Provide Resources: Ensure peers know how to connect victims with counseling, hotlines, legal, and medical help.
• Encourage Storytelling: Support survivors in sharing their stories, through art, writing, or anonymously, to help others feel less isolated.
• Organize Mentorship Programs: Pair survivors with mentors for peer-to-peer support and healing.
• Use Social Media: Raise awareness and share support through social media campaigns.
• Normalize Help-Seeking: Encourage a culture where seeking professional help is seen as a sign of strength.

Myth: Sexual assault and rape happens only to “certain” types of women.
Fact: Any person of any gender, age, race, class, religion, occupation, physical ability, sexual identity, expression, or appearance can be sexually assaulted. The perpetrator does not choose the victim because they are young, pretty, or provocatively dressed; the perpetrator chooses the victim who is vulnerable. The perpetrator may select a victim who is smaller or perceived to be weaker than they are, who is alone or isolated, who is incapacitated, or who does not suspect what is about to happen.

Myth: A victim must have “asked for it” by being seductive, drunk, careless, high, etc.
Fact: No one asks to be violated, abused, injured, or humiliated. Perpetrators who are intoxicated or under the influence of drugs are still responsible for their actions and regardless of behavior, no one deserves to be sexually assaulted or raped.

Myth: If a person does not fight back, they were not really raped. 
Fact: Whatever a person does to survive is the appropriate action. Rape can be life threatening, especially when a perpetrator uses a weapon or force. Submission is not the same as cooperation. There are many reasons why a victim may not physically fight, or resist, their attacker including shock, fear, threats, or the size and strength of the perpetrator. In California, lack of protest or resistance, or silence, does not mean consent. 

Myth: Most sexual assaults are committed by strangers. It's not rape if the people involved know each other.
Fact: Most sexual assaults and rape are committed by someone the victim knows. A study of sexual victimization of college women showed that about 90% of victims knew the person who sexually victimized them.