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 CU (not about the perpetrator's specific CU 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.