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Educate Yourself - Terms & Definitions

  • Consent must be affirmed and given freely, willingly, and knowingly of each participant to desired sexual involvement. Consent is a mutually affirmative, conscious decision – indicated clearly by words or actions – to engage in mutually accepted sexual contact. Consent may be revoked at any time during the sexual activity by any person engaged in the activity.

    Affirmative consent may never be assumed because there is no physical resistance or other negative response. A person who initially consents to sexual activity shall be deemed not to have affirmatively consented to any such activity which occurs after that consent is withdrawn. It is the responsibility of each person to assure that he or she has the affirmative consent of all persons engaged in the sexual activity to engage in the sexual activity and that affirmative consent is sustained throughout the sexual activity. It shall not be a valid excuse to an alleged lack of affirmative consent that the student or employee responding to the alleged violation believed that the student reporting or disclosing the alleged violation consented to the activity (i) because the responding student or employee was intoxicated or reckless or failed to take reasonable steps to ascertain whether the student or employee reporting or disclosing the alleged violation affirmatively consented, or (ii) if the responding student or employee knew or should have known that the student or employee reporting or disclosing the alleged violation was unable to consent because the student or employee was unconscious, asleep, unable to communicate due to a mental or physical condition, or incapacitated due to the influence of drugs, alcohol or medication. The existence of a past or current dating or sexual relationship between the persons involved in the alleged violation shall not be determinative of a finding of affirmative consent.

    • Taken from the Board of Regents Sexual Misconduct Reporting, Support Services and Processes Policy

  • Sexual misconduct includes engaging in any of the following behaviors: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexual exploitation, Intimate partner violence, domestic and/or dating violence, Stalking, and Retaliation.

  • Sexual harassment, which can include any unwelcome sexual advance or request for sexual favors, or any conduct of a sexual nature when submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s education or employment; submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for academic or employment decisions affecting the individual; or such conduct has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual’s academic or work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive educational or employment environment.

    Examples of conduct which may constitute sexual harassment include, but are not limited to:

    • sexual flirtation, touching, advances or propositions
    • verbal abuse of a sexual nature
    • pressure to engage in sexual activity
    • graphic or suggestive comments about an individual’s dress or appearance
    • use of sexually degrading words to describe an individual
    • display of sexually suggestive objects, pictures or photographs  
    • sexual jokes
    • stereotypic comments based upon gender
    • threats, demands or suggestions that retention of one’s educational status is contingent upon toleration of or acquiescence in sexual advances.

    Retaliation is prohibited and occurs when a person is subjected to an adverse employment or educational action because he or she made a complaint under this policy or assisted or participated in any manner in an investigation.

    Taken from the Board of Regents Sexual Misconduct Reporting, Support Services and Processes Policy

  • Sexual assault includes, but is not limited to, a sexual act directed against another person without the consent (as defined herein) of the other person or when that person is not capable of giving such consent.

    Sexual intimacy is permissible only if it is agreed to by all participants and all activity is affirmatively consensual at all times.

    Sexual assault is further defined in sections 53a-70, 53a-70a, 53a-70b, 53a-71, 53a-72a, 53a-72b and 53a-73a of the Connecticut General Statutes.

    Taken from the Board of Regents Sexual Misconduct Reporting, Support Services and Processes Policy

  • Sexual exploitation occurs when a person takes non-consensual or abusive sexual advantage of another for anyone’s advantage or benefit other than the person being exploited, and that behavior does not otherwise constitute one of the preceding sexual misconduct offenses. Examples of behavior that could rise to the level of sexual exploitation include:

    • Prostituting another person;
    • Non-consensual visual (e.g., video, photograph) or audio-recording of sexual activity;
    • Non-consensual distribution of photos, other images, or information of an individual’s sexual activity, intimate body parts, or nakedness, with the intent to or having the effect of embarrassing an individual who is the subject of such images or information;
    • Going beyond the bounds of consent (for example, an individual who allows friends to hide in the closet to watch him or her having consensual sex);
    • Engaging in non-consensual voyeurism;
    • Knowingly transmitting an STI, such as HIV to another without disclosing your STI status;
    • Exposing one’s genitals in non-consensual circumstances, or inducing another to expose his or her genitals; or
    • Possessing, distributing, viewing or forcing others to view illegal pornography.

    Sexual exploitation is further defined as a crime in Connecticut State Law.

    Taken from the Board of Regents Sexual Misconduct Reporting, Support Services and Processes Policy

  • Stalking, which is defined as repeatedly contacting another person when the contacting person knows or should know that the contact is unwanted by the other person; and the contact causes the other person reasonable apprehension of imminent physical harm or the contacting person knows or should know that the contact causes substantial impairment of the other person’s ability to perform the activities of daily life.

    As used in this definition, the term “contacting” includes, but is not limited to, communicating with (including internet communication via e-mail, instant message, on- line community or any other internet communication) or remaining in the physical presence of the other person.

    Taken from the Board of Regents Sexual Misconduct Reporting, Support Services and Processes Policy

  • Interpersonal violence means any physical or sexual harm against an individual by a current or former spouse of or person in a dating or cohabiting relationship with such individual that results from any action by such spouse or such person that may be classified as a sexual assault under section 53a-70, 53a-70a, 53a-70b, 53a-71, 53a-72a, 53a-72b or 53a-73a of the general statutes, stalking under section 53a-181c, 53a-181d or 53a-181e of the general statutes, or domestic or family violence as designated under section 46b-38h of the general statutes.

    This includes any physical or sexual harm against an individual by a current or former spouse or by a partner in a dating relationship that results from:

    1. sexual assault;
    2. sexual assault in a spousal or cohabiting relationship;
    3. domestic violence;
    4. sexual harassment;
    5. sexual exploitation, as such terms are defined in this policy.

    Offenses that are designated as “domestic violence” are against family or household members or persons in dating or cohabiting relationships and include assaults, sexual assaults, stalking, and violations of protective or restraining orders issued by a Court. Intimate partner violence may also include physical abuse, threat of abuse, and emotional abuse.

    • Physical abuse includes, but is not limited to, slapping, pulling hair or punching.
    • Threat of abuse includes but is not limited to, threatening to hit, harm or use a weapon on another (whether victim or acquaintance, friend or family member of the victim) or other forms of verbal threat.
    • Emotional abuse includes but is not limited to, damage to one’s property, driving recklessly to scare someone, name calling, threatening to hurt one’s family members or pets and humiliating another person.
    • Cohabitation occurs when two individuals dwell together in the same place as if married.
    • The determination of whether a “dating relationship” existed is to be based upon the following factors: the reporting victim’s statement as to whether such a relationship existed, the length of the relationship, the type of the relationship and the frequency of the interaction between the persons reported to be involved in the relationship.

    Taken from the Board of Regents Sexual Misconduct Reporting, Support Services and Processes Policy

  • The Complainant refers to an individual who is alleged to be the victim of conduct what would constitute sexual harassment.

  • The Respondent refers to an individual who has been reported to be the perpetrator of conduct that could constitute sexual harassment.