We Are Listening: What Students Told Us About Sexual Violence on Campus - Part I – The Stories Beneath the Silence

Stock Image of survey results on a laptop.

From the DARCC Education Department

This fall, our Allies to Advocates Outreach and Education interns stepped onto their campuses with a question that is both simple and incredibly complex: 

What does it feel like to be a student today, in a culture where sexual violence is both widespread and rarely spoken about honestly? 

A2A is DARCC’s peer-led outreach and education program that trains and educates college students through activities, tabling, club meetings, and other campus involvement. Our interns play an active role in building safer and more informed campuses. They are not outsiders coming in to teach. They are students listening to other students and helping their peers understand what safety, consent, and community look like in real life. 

We designed this survey because sexual violence does not happen in a vacuum. It is shaped by the culture we live in, the relationships we form, and the pressure to fit in or stay silent. Sexual violence is not just a statistic. It is something students experience in real time, often without the words to describe it. It can show up as hesitation, confusion, or the feeling that something was wrong even if they can’t explain why. Survivors often carry that alone, and we wanted to understand that experience more honestly. 

This survey was not about counting incidents. It was about understanding what it feels like to navigate college life where harm is possible and often unspoken. It was about learning where students feel held, where they feel unheard, and what needs to change to make campuses safer. 

Students answered with honesty and depth, and their voices deserve to be truly listened to. 

“I Would Tell a Friend First.” 

Again and again, students shared that if something happened, their first instinct would not be to contact a Title IX office, police department, or formal advocate. They would go to someone they already trust. They would turn to a friend. This is not because students do not believe resources exist. Many of them do. It is because students seek emotional safety before informational guidance. They want to be heard before they are directed. They want to be believed before they are processed through a system. 

One student wrote simply: 

“Listen first. Be there.” 

Another said: 

“Just support them in whatever way they need.” 

This matters. It means that the first moment after harm is not usually happening in a counseling office. It is happening in dorm rooms, in dining halls, in cars, and in text messages at 1 a.m. The first person someone turns to holds more power than they may ever realize. Peer education is not extra or optional. It is central to prevention and healing. 

This is exactly why we created A2A. Students often go to each other first, and we wanted to make sure those peers feel prepared, supported, and confident when someone turns to them. 

Students Understand Consent. The Challenge Is Living It. 

Not a single respondent indicated that they were confused about what consent is. Students understand that consent must be voluntary, mutual, enthusiastic, and ongoing. The struggle is not definition. It is navigation. 

Students described the hardest moments as the ones where external pressures cloud internal truth. When someone wants to maintain connection, avoid conflict, or not disappoint a friend or partner. When alcohol is involved and social norms encourage silence. When “I don’t want to” feels too heavy to say out loud. 

One student wrote: 

“Consent is not just yes. It is body language too.” 

Another shared: 

“You might be okay at first and then not want to anymore.” 

These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are lived ones. 

And they reflect a painful truth: 
Students are not confused about consent. 
They are grappling with whether they can honor what feels right for them in real, vulnerable, and socially complicated situations. 

It is less about knowing the definition and more about feeling supported and confident enough to trust their own boundaries in the moment. 

Consent education must move beyond definitions. 
It must move into the real situations where pressure, uncertainty, and emotion shape students’ choices. 

This means teaching students how to recognize their own boundaries in the moment, how to communicate them, how to read nonverbal cues, how to slow things down, and how to respond when a situation starts to feel different than they expected. It means giving them skills they can use in the actual moments where consent becomes complicated, not just the classroom ones where everything feels straightforward. 

Students Are Talking About Sexual Violence. But Only After Harm. 

The survey revealed that conversations about sexual violence do happen on campus, but they tend to happen after something has already gone wrong. Students described these conversations as heavy, reactionary, or confined to specific social spaces. 

Many noted that LGBTQ+ communities speak about these topics more openly, while groups in Greek life, athletics, and certain faith-based contexts speak about them far less. This means the emotional work of awareness is being shouldered primarily by survivors, women, and queer students. Meanwhile, the environments where prevention is most needed are often the quietest. Silence is not neutrality, and it is culture-shaping. 

Students Want to Intervene. They Just Want to Do It Well. 

One of the most striking findings was how much students want to support each other when something feels off. They want to protect one another. They want to stop harm before it happens. They want to be the friend someone is safe with. What holds them back is not avoidance. It is fear of doing the wrong thing. 

One student said: 

“Different people need different kinds of support. I want to make sure I respond in the right way.” 

That is not apathy. That is compassion asking for skill. Students do not need to be convinced to care. They need to be equipped to act. 

Why We Listened First 

We did this survey because prevention is not a warning or a poster or a policy tucked away on a campus website. Prevention is culture, and culture is built through relationships and everyday decisions. Before we could teach or plan or change anything, we needed to listen. Students are the experts of their own experiences, and their perspectives needed to guide the conversation. This survey was not simply about collecting information, but about honoring what is real for students right now. What they shared will shape everything we do next. 

Stay tuned to see how we turn these insights into action and continue building safer, more supportive campuses alongside the students we serve.