Rape Supportive Culture (RSC) is our collective societal attitude about sexual and relationship violence. Although this term contains the word “rape,” the concept is meant to encompass all forms of power-based violence (stalking, sexual harassment, dating violence, sexual assault, street harassment, voyeurism/peeping, etc.). Tolerating, excusing, or making light of violence through our language and actions keeps rape supportive culture alive.

For example, common phrases that describe sex like a sport such as “hit that, smashing, banging, screwing, tapping, scoring” are not isolated incidents of problematic language. They are part of an overwhelming societal view that normalizes violence. which is part of rape supportive culture. It is also important to recognize that we each participate in RSC on an individual level. Understanding how we contribute requires reflection about our own implicit biases and the ways we are silent in the face of oppressive and dehumanizing language.

Sexual assault is a blanket term for sexual contact without consent and may include touching of intimate body areas, intercourse, or penetration.

Sexual assault is also:

• a violation of a person’s physical and emotional well being.
• a crime prosecutable under Colorado law.
• an act of power and control.
• sexual assault is NOT an expression of love, passion, or sexual desire.
• sexual assault is NOT your fault.

Many people use “rape” and sexual assault synonymously. Rape is a type of sexual assault. We separate them out because we believe this is part of the process of examining the dynamics of sexual violence. If we view “rape” and “sexual assault” as the same, it could minimize or make invisible other forms of sexual assault.

Harassment that is of an implicitly or overtly sexual nature, or is based on a person’s actual or perceived sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Sexual harassment, including sexual assault, can involve persons of the same or opposite sex, and includes any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favors, or other conduct of a sexual nature.

A course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear. It can, in some cases, be a form of intimate partner violence and/or lead to sexual assault.

Survivor refers to anyone who has been harmed as a result of power-based violence and has survived the incident(s). Since language has the ability to help or hinder the healing process, using “survivor” is a hopeful attempt to bring to center the agency and resiliency of those who have experienced trauma. It is most often used by other survivors, advocates, counselors, and activists who walk with someone as they navigate the aftermath of trauma.

Victim is a legal term which may be used intentionally to emphasize that violence is a crime with a spectrum of damaging and enduring effects whether or not the act(s) are reported to or adjudicated in the campus administrative, criminal justice, or civil systems. Additionally, it is used to signify people who have experienced abuse who are no longer alive.

At times, the term victim may also be used to underscore that violence and trauma do not occur in vacuums but in the context of societies and cultures where they are experienced. Ideally, it removes the focus from the individual and their response to a traumatic event and situates it onto the societal contexts where systems, structures, and ideologies reproduce oppression and further compound trauma.

Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.