What is your story?
A LOT of attention has been paid to sexual harassment as of late. We have heard about extensive sexual harassment in the workplace, sexual harassment on college campuses, sexual harassment perpetrated by adults against children.
Less discussed is the growing issue of sexual harassment among children or peer-on-peer sexual harassment as we have termed it.
The aim of the #RAPstories Campaign is to promote awareness of peer-on-peer sexual harassment in schools, at parties, in sports or while abroad. We want young people to be able to define, identify and respond with confidence to sexual harassment.
Rather than be bystanders, we want to empower young people to #SpreadRespect by speaking out. We want to share your #RAPstories.
But first, let’s define sexual harassment.
According to Citizens Advice, sexual harassment is unwanted behavior of a sexual nature which:
- violates your dignity
- makes you feel intimidated, degraded or humiliated
- creates a hostile or offensive environment
Sexual harassment can be nonphysical:
- sexual comments or jokes, gestures or requests for sexual acts
- displaying pictures, photos or drawings of a sexual nature
- sending texts or emails with unwanted sexual content
- spreading sexual rumors about someone
Sexual harassment can also, of course, be physical:
- Unwanted touching including hugging, kissing and other unwanted sexual advances
If you have personally experienced this kind of behavior, or have witnessed the sexual harassment of one or more of your peers, we want to hear from you.
We want to know what sexual harassment looks like to you.
Maybe you heard a rape joke at school that made you uncomfortable. Maybe you helped spread a sexual rumor about someone. Maybe your friend showed your an inappropriate photo of someone at school.
How did it make you feel? What did you do about? If you could go back in time, would you respond differently now?
Worried about speaking up?
Don’t be. When you email us at info@therapproject.co.uk or DM us on our facebook or instagram pages, we will ask you whether you would like us to share your story on our social media platforms. You can choose to share your story anonymously or with your first name and age attached. Our aim is simply to spread awareness about peer-on-peer sexual harassment and you can help us do that.
Use the hashtags #RAPstories and #SpreadRespect to help us have a conversation about peer-on-peer sexual harassment.