Survey Results: Sexual Exploitation
Sexual exploitation is when someone takes sexual advantage of another person without their consent. The prevalence of sexual exploitation decreased slightly across groups from 2015 to 2021. Due to small numbers of responses and to protect confidentiality, results for sexual exploitation for graduate students are not broken out by gender.
2015 | 2021 | |||||
Sexual Exploitation | N | Freq | % | N | Freq | % |
Undergraduate Women | 5,519 | 352 | 6% | 4,243 | 219 | 5% |
Undergraduate Men | 4,821 | 125 | 3% | 3,402 | 40 | 1% |
Graduate Students | 2,596 | 30 | 1% | 3,055 | 8 | <1% |
For undergraduate men and women in both administrations of the survey, the most common sexual exploitation behavior reported was: “Exposed their genitals or masturbated in front of you.”
For graduate students (combined across genders due to small numbers of responses) the most common behavior in 2015 was “Exposed their genitals or masturbated in front of you,” while the most common behavior in 2021 was “Taken photographs or videos of your intimate parts and/or genitals.”
The prevalence of each sexual exploitation behavior for undergraduate women and men is presented below (note that some behaviors were only asked in the 2021 survey). To ensure that participants cannot be identified by the uniqueness of their responses, rates for undergraduates are only displayed if at least 10 students reported the behavior. The number of graduate student participants who reported any specific sexual exploitation behavior is less than 10 and so their results are not displayed.
Below are the prevalence rates for the most common sexual exploitation behaviors that survey participants reported experiencing.
Undergraduate Women | 2015 | 2021 |
Exposed their genitals or masturbated in front of you | 52% | 50% |
Taken photographs or videos of your intimate parts and/or genitals, etc. | 29% | 30% |
Viewed your sexual activity, etc., in a place where you had a reasonable expectation of privacy | 34% | 25% |
Distributed photographs or videos of your intimate parts and/or genitals, etc. | 10% | 18% |
Taken possession of your intimate personal property | NA% | 18% |
Made you expose your genitals or masturbate in front of them | NA | 13% |
Made you engage in sexual activity (i.e., prostituted you) | 8% | 8% |
Made audio recordings of you engaging in sexual behavior | NA | 5% |
Undergraduate Men | 2015 | 2021 |
Exposed their genitals or masturbated in front of you | 55% | 45% |
Taken possession of your intimate personal property | NA | 25% |
Viewed your sexual activity, etc., in a place where you had a reasonable expectation of privacy | 42% | 22% |
Taken photographs or videos of your intimate parts and/or genitals, etc. | 14% | 22% |
Participants who reported experiencing sexual exploitation were asked about the perpetrator’s affiliation with (not about the perpetrator's specific role).
For undergraduate women, in both survey administrations, the perpetrator(s) were primarily affiliated with the university (66% in 2015, 48% in 2021). The same was true for undergraduate men (69% in 2015, 42% in 2021).
However, for graduate students, while most who experienced sexual exploitation indicated that the perpetrators were affiliated with the university in 2015 (83%), only 38% indicated that the perpetrator was affiliated with the university in 2021 (50% indicating “No”; 12% indicating “Not sure”).
In 2021, there was an increase in the proportion of students indicating “prefer not to answer” when asked for details about the sexual exploitation perpetrator. This change may be related to increased concerns about data privacy in 2021 relative to 2015.