A study that was done in the National Sexual Violence Resource Centre reportedly found out that men and young adults are still not clear in their minds as to what counts as sexual assault. The researchers surveyed almost 1,200 people from all genders, and age groups between 18 and 34 and from walks of life about what they understood about sexual assault and sexual consent. The survey was done primarily with a motive to understand and bring to light that many men till today don’t think that any sexual act when done without their partner’s consent is purely sexual assault.

The respondents were asked to mark if they think or not that a specific act constitutes sexual assault. Men along with other people too who were between the ages of 18 and 34, were less likely to recognise the act as sexual assault across all the categories that were mentioned.

 64% of the respondents were of the belief that watching someone indulged in a private act without their proper knowledge and permission was counted as sexual assault while 54% were of the view that unwanted provocative remarks made verbally counted.

When the respondents were asked if having a sexual intercourse where one of the partners is pressurised to give their consent to have sex constituted as an assault 67% of men who took the survey said yes. However 16% of the people who took the survey did not think that having sexual intercourse without their partner’s consent is considered as rape.

The survey clearly points towards the importance of continuously having conversations about consent and what a forced sexual intercourse is.

What is more concerning is the fact that even though the survey very specifically pointed out that many of these sexual acts were not consensual still the people who responded to the survey did not recognise those acts as assault and the results of this survey clearly are telling us what women have been saying for years that all the men should be taught about what is sexual consent early and women need to use only small little words to them if they want to have sex.

So if you know anybody who indulges in sexual activities including taking photos or video, shares photos and videos ,often does acts like touching someone, watching someone, or says something sexual, all of this if done without consent is considered to be sexual assault.