Around UC Davis residence halls, on Unitrans buses and in bars and apartments in town, students are giving the provocative posters a long look. Young people at schools and universities around the nation and the world are wating to check the ads out:
One displays a young man with his lips pressed to his girlfriend's bare stomach. The text reads: "You are laughing. You are touching. She tenses up. Is she shy or afraid to say, 'stop'?"
Another features a close-up shot of a woman carefully eyeing herself in the mirror before a date. She's asked if she's thought about whether she's ready to have sex. Still a third shows a couple closely embracing and questions why the woman's heart is pounding - is she excited or frightened?
The posters - four in all - were developed as part of the "Voices Not Victims" campaign sponsored by the UC Davis Campus Violence Prevention Program and designed by Oakland advocacy advertising firm Slingshot Productions. Far more than a simple rape awareness project, the campaign asks students to think about sexual communication and mutually establishing comfort zones with their partner.
Violence prevention peer educator Sarah Blanchette says the posters make her job easier.
"Students have all seen them," she said. "It stirs up dialogues."
Worldwide appeal
The campus violence prevention office has also received requests for the posters from around the country and the world.
Ms. magazine featured the ads and other rape awareness spots that Slingshot has produced in the "Applause" section of its April/May issue. The University of Texas has ordered posters for its campus rape awareness program, and the Ohio Catholic schools want the images.
And just recently, Jennifer Beeman, director of the violence prevention office, received a request from the Ford Foundation's office in Africa for the posters and permission to translate them into Swahili, a language spoken in eastern and central Africa.
"This campaign was really specifically intended to start conversation, and it really has - in a very positive way," Beeman said.
Students spurred to action
On the UC Davis campus, those conversations have already led to action by students struggling over sexual boundaries. Since the posters went up around campus and in town last October, the number of students who have visited Beeman's office seeking information or help has doubled, she said.
That means, she said, the campaign has been "incredibly successful."
Voices Not Victims was developed through a portion of a $540,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Violence Against Women Office. UC Davis was one of 40 colleges in the country to receive a Grant to Combat Violent Crimes Against Women.
To augment the ad campaign, UC Davis is also developing a Web-based interactive CD-Rom program that allows students to explore their attitudes toward violence against women. Beeman plans to distribute the program to every college in the country.
Extensive surveys conducted
When it received the federal grant, UC Davis took its mission seriously to develop a thought-provoking rape awareness program.
Last spring, Slingshot staff and Beeman's office surveyed students and held focus groups to find out their feelings on sexual consent, personal responsibility and sexual assault on campus. What the surveyors found was that sexual communication was far from a black and white issue among young adults.
Women felt that the terms rape and sexual assault didn't always describe their experiences with coerced or forced sex. And men believed that women needed to be clearer about their boundaries in the beginning of a sexual encounter. With the survey in mind, Slingshot director Granate Sosnoff created posters that reflected young people's interest in intimate relationships but also their confusion about them.
Sosnoff says she, too, was surprised but delighted to hear about the popularity of the series. Chad Sniffen, a violence prevention office administrative assistant, said he's gotten poster requests from fraternity members who want to decorate their rooms with them.
And students have taken down the ads from walls around campus because they've liked them so much, Beeman said.
"I'm amazed. I'm really touched," Sosnoff said. "There's definitely a hunger for messages that aren't preachy or cut and dry."
Campaign may see other colleges
Voices not Victims has been so successful, Beeman hopes to receive a grant extension to share the campaign's messages with other area campuses, such as California State University, Sacramento. With the help of a counselor from Sacramento's Women Escaping a Violent Environment, Beeman plans to study the impact the ads have on commuter schools.
She and Slingshot also want to conduct a new round of student surveys and focus groups on the issue of relationship violence as well as communication in same-sex partnerships.
For more details, see voicesnotvictims.org.