Yes Means Yes: An Evaluation of an Alternative Approach to Sexual Assault Prevention

Event Center BC

Sexual assault on college campuses is a prevalent social problem generating a significant amount of research over the past several decades. Many programs have adopted a No Means No (NMN) approach to sexual assault prevention focusing on methods for potential and previous survivors of sexual assault to avoid becoming victims. Although these methods have had some success, they tend to place responsibility on survivors whereas perpetrators are not held accountable for their actions. Furthermore, in most approaches, the issue of consent is not taken into account. The Yes Means Yes (YMY) approach to sexual assault prevention recently legislated in California has heightened the issue of sexual assault prevention in the public consciousness and defined consent for sexual activities as an explicit “yes” rather than an absence of “no”. The YMY philosophy of consent emphasizes the mutuality of sexual activity and thus holds perpetrators accountable for their behavior in sexual assaults. The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the effectiveness of an YMY sexual assault prevention program in comparison to a NMN approach. Students from CSUSB were recruited and randomly assigned to receive a presentation about sexual assault based on either the YMY approach or the NMN approach. Participants completed pretest and posttest measures of rape myth acceptance and attitudes toward consent one week before and after attending the presentation. They also engaged in open discussion in small focus groups immediately following the presentations. Preliminary results support the effectiveness of the YMY model. Implications and future directions will be discussed.