Every year in the United States, advocates observe Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) during April. This year, two non-profit organizations will promote and organize activities for Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2025:
- The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC)
- The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN)
In addition, the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC) provides information about the connection between stalking and sexual violence directly relevant to the goals of SAAM.
This year, the NSRVC and RAINN created two distinct themes for SAAM. We’ll start with the NSRVC theme:
“Together We Act, United We Change“
The goals of this theme include:
- Highlighting the importance of working together to raise awareness and prevent sexual violence
- Understanding sexual violence
- Raising and amplifying the voices of survivors of sexual violence, assault, and rape
- Empowering survivors through community support
Here’s a variation of the theme:
Together, we act with purpose! United, we have the power to change the world for the better.
Next, let’s look at the theme the organizers at RAINN chose for SAAM 2025:
This theme builds on the NSVRC theme and expands it to include the recent phenomenon of online sexual violence. Here’s how RAINN discuss technological sexual assault:
“Deepfakes…revenge porn…sextortion…no matter what you call it, tech-enabled sexual abuse is sexual abuse. Technology is making it easier than ever for perpetrators to cause serious harm.”
In 2025, these non-profits work to bring survivors, advocates, and others together to raise awareness about sexual assault and sexual violence in general, and increase knowledge about the dangers off tech-enabled sexual harassment and abuse.
In this article, we’ll review the basic definition of sexual assault, share statistics on the prevalence of sexual assault and rape in the U.S., and discuss the consequences of sexual assault. We’ll also share the risk and protective factors associated with sexual assault, and close with recommendations from the CDC about how to prevent and reduce sexual assault and its consequences.
First, a brief history of SAAM.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2025: A History of SAAM
In April 2001, the NSRV organized the first SAAM. This awareness month was far overdue, and was the result of a decades-long movement toward equality for women in all areas of our society and culture. This included an awareness and official recognition of the problem of domestic violence, sexual violence, sexual assault, exploitation, and a general need for forward progress on a wide range of women’s rights and women’s issues.
When we talk about sexual assault and sexual violence, we focus on women, and for good reason: not only are women the primary victims of sexual assault, but they also lacked significant legal protection against violence and assault in their own homes until the 1970s.
We’ll address male victims in this article, but we’ll focus on women, since history indicates a lack of awareness of the breadth and scope of their experience of sexual assault and sexual violence.
It’s important to understand that domestic violence wasn’t banned in the U.S. until the 19th century. As we mention above, the long road to equity for women in our society and culture includes the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and the Women’s Rights Movement in the 1970s.
As of 2025, the following 12 states have yet to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) of 1972: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
While the ERA is important in that it seeks equity for women across all areas of society, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is important in that it included provisions to:
- Create and fund the Office of Violence Against Women
- Increase rights for victims of violent crime
- Mandate funding for investigating and prosecuting violent crimes against women, including domestic abuse and violence
This history shows us why sexual assault awareness month is necessary, and why, when we talk about sexual assault and sexual violence, we focus on female victims: many of the cultural norms and some of the archaic laws established in our early history persisted until the 1990s.
Now let’s define sexual assault.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2025: What is Sexual Assault?
Here’s how the NSVRC and RAINN define sexual violence, an umbrella term that includes sexual assault:
“Any type of unwanted sexual contact, including sexual abuse, assault, and harassment.”
Sexual violence includes, but is not limited to the following:
- Rape
- Sexual assault
- Sexual harassment
- Any sexual abuse
- Any unwanted sexual contact
- Any unwanted touching
- Sexual exploitation
- Sex trafficking
- Exposing self to/flashing others
- Sharing sexual images without consent
- Forced sharing of sexual images
- Sharing AI-generated sexual images with someone’s likeness
- Sharing another person’s sex-related words/actions without consent
Data shows that in eighty percent of sexual assault cases, the victim knows the perpetrator. This may be called intimate partner violence, acquaintance rape, or colloquially, date rape. All are illegal and all qualify as criminal violence. When the victim doesn’t know the perpetrator, sexual assault most often occurs in three ways:
- Blitz assault: quick, brutal assault, typically at night, typically in a public/semi-public area
- Contact assault: occurs after contact of some sort, wherein perpetrator lures victim into a car, building, or other area where they can carry out sexual assault
- Home invasion: occurs when the perpetrator illegally enters victim residence and rapes/assaults them
That’s what sexual assault is, and the many forms it may take. For anyone who’s unsure how to understand these various definitions, default to the phrase “any type of unwanted sexual contact” and understand that means contact via text, phone, email, or other virtual methods, as well as direct, in-person assault.
Next, let’s look at the latest statistics on sexual assault in the U.S., in order to understand the scope of the problem.
Sexual Violence and Assault: Facts and Figures
These are big-picture statistics on sexual assault published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on their Sexual Violence Prevention page.
Sexual Assault, Rape, and/or Sexual Violence
Experience of sexual violence or assault, lifetime:
- 50% of women
- 30% of men
Lifetime experience of rape:
- 25% of women
- 4% of men
- 11% of men report being forced to penetrate someone
Lifetime experience of sexual harassment in public:
- 33% of women
- 11% of men
Age at time of rape/assault:
- 80% of female rape victims report rape before age 25
- 50% of female rape victims report rape before age 18
- 80% of male rape victims report being forced to penetrate someone before age 25
- 40% of male rape victims report being forced to penetrate someone before age 18
While the majority of victims of sexual assault are women, the data indicates a significant number of men experience sexual assault, as well. Please note the disparity between the percentage of men reporting sexual violence, the percentage of men reporting rape, and the percentage of men reporting being forced to penetrate. While there’s no question women experience sexual assault a far greater rates than men, there’s also a real possibility the percentage of male victims is underreported.
Now let’s discuss the consequences of experiencing sexual assault.
Sexual Violence: Outcomes
Evidence indicates that victims of sexual assault often experience severe, long-term, physical, psychological, and emotional consequences. While reading through the information below, please understand that responses to sexual assault/rape are complex vary by the individual. Factors that influence the long-term consequences the personal attributes and history of the victim, the specific type of violence and injury associated with the rape/assault, the availability of medical care, and the presence of compassionate, non-judgmental support from mental health professionals experienced in supporting victims of trauma.
We collected and compiled the following list from sources provided by the Mayo Clinic and the peer-reviewed journal article “Psychological Aspects of Rape and Its Consequences.”
Consequences of Sexual Assault
- Direct physical injury from the rape/assault
- Loss of self-esteem, self-worth, sense of personal value
- Feelings of guilt, shame, and self-blame
- Anger
- Sadness
- Emotional dysregulation
- Dissociation
- Suicidality
- Mental health disorders, including:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Alcohol /substance misuse
- Eating disorders
- Cognitive problems
- Memory problems
- Problems at work
- Impaired social function
- Difficulty/problems related to sex/sexual activity
- Flashbacks to the event
- Problems forming and maintaining relationships
- Friendships
- Intimate relationships
The facts and figures in the section above shows us that sexual assault occurs far more often and to far more people than most of us realize, including men and boys. The bullet points immediately above indicate the severity of the consequences of sexual assault. While not all victims experience severe consequences, it’s important to understand that for those who do, the consequences can last for a lifetime and create significant disruption. However, with professional support in the form of trauma-informed care, it’s possible to process the trauma of rape and sexual assault and reduce/manage the long-term consequences.
Now let’s look at the factors that increase risk for sexual violence by perpetrators, called risk factors, and the things we can do to prevent sexual violence, called prevention strategies.
Sexual Violence: Risk Factors for Perpetration
The information above – prevalence and consequences – can be disturbing. To reduce sexual violence, the CDC identifies four distinct classes of risk factors: Individual/Personal. Relationship/Relational, Social/Societal, and Community/Environment. While the presence of the following risk factors does not mean someone will commit rape or sexual assault, the CDC indicates that the risk factors below can “contribute to the risk of becoming a perpetrator of sexual violence,” especially in the presence of more than one from each category.
Individual Factors:
- History of aggressive behavior
- History of violence
- General anger or hostility towards women
- Hypermasculinity
- Early sexual experiences
- Lack of empathy
- Drug/alcohol use
- Presence of violent sexual fantasies
- Preference for impersonal sex
Relational/ Relationship Factors:
- Conflict and violence in family
- Emotionally non-supportive home
- Dysfunctional relationship with parents
- Association with hypermasculine peers
- History of sexual, emotional, or physical abuse
Community Factors:
- General acceptance of sexual violence
- Absence of significant consequences for sexual violence
- Poverty
- Lack of employment opportunities
- Absence of support from police and local justice system
Societal Factors:
- Social and cultural norms that promote female inferiority
- Social and cultural norms that promote female sexual submissiveness
- Inadequate/poorly enforced laws regarding sexual violence
- Social and cultural norms that promote sexual entitlement for men
- Inadequate/poorly enforced consequences for sexual violence
The presence of specific factors does not mean a person will commit sexual violence. Millions of people come from families that are not emotionally supportive and live in communities with inadequate protections without becoming perpetrators of sexual violence. However, when individual factors associated with violent behavior combine with personal, social, and cultural norms that promote the subjugation and objectification of women, risk of sexual assault increases.
How Can We Prevent Sexual Assault During Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2025?
For Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2025, we can all learn how to reduce the prevalence of sexual assault and sexual violence in our communities. And we don’t have to do it alone: we can use resources provided by RAINN and the CDC.
First, we’ll share the themes for SAAM for each week of April. To participate, post the tag line, a graphic, a statement about sexual violence, and a link to any of the resources available here.
- March 30 – April 5: Together We Act, United We Change
- April 6 – 12: Act. Change.
- April 13 – 19: Uplifting Voices of Survivors
- April 20 – 26: Communities Act Together
- April 27 – May 3: United, We Create a Safer Tomorrow
Next, we’ll share the main points of a publication released in 2016 by the CDC called STOP SV: A Technical Package to Prevent Sexual Violence. The authors created an acronym to organize and promote prevention strategies:
STOPSV: Five Steps For Preventing Sexual Assault
S for Social Norms to Reduce Violence:
- Educate bystanders on actions to take
- Educate men and boys to act as allies against sexual assault
T for Teaching Skills to Reduce Sexual Violence:
- Increase social and emotional learning in early education
- Teach teens about safe, healthy dating and intimate relationship skills
O is for Opportunities to Empower Women and Girls:
- Increase financial and economic support for women and families
- Expand leadership opportunities for women and girls in the community, in schools, and at work
P is for Protective Environments
- Enhance and improve monitoring of sexual assault in schools
- Improve – or establish – workplace policies that protect women against harassment
- Expand community awareness programs related to sexual assault/violence
SV is for Supporting Victims and Survivors
- Expand victim-centered services nationwide
- Create and fund treatment programs for sexual assault victims
- Create and fund treatment programs for families at risk of violence or sexual violence due to alcohol/substance misuse, history of trauma, or other environmental factors
To explore those prevention methods further, please click the link and read the document: what we share is the tip of the iceberg. The takeaway here is that sexual assault is preventable, and if we follow the steps above, we can reduce the prevalence of sexual assault for everyone: girls, women, boys, and men.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2025: Treatment for Trauma
The emotional, psychological, and behavioral consequences of sexual assault, for the victim, often manifest as symptoms that coincide with trauma-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Evidence shows trauma-related disorders respond well to a treatment modality called trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), which involves specific techniques to process and resolve trauma and associated emotions.
To learn more about trauma-focused treatment at BACA, please visit this treatment page:
Here’s an excerpt from the CDC publication on sexual assault prevention about the importance and effectiveness of trauma-focused therapy, which prevent/reduce sexual assault:
“Intensive therapeutic approaches [can] address the individual, family, school, and community factors associated with violence perpetration. Importantly, these approaches also focus on strengthening parent-child relationships and parental outcomes, such as stress and depression, which influence parenting behaviors that may impact children’s risk for SV.”
That’s instructive: individual and community interventions and therapies that help victims resolve trauma can also reduce or prevent behaviors that lead to and perpetuate trauma. What this teaches us is that a comprehensive, early focus on social and emotional literacy is not only an essential component of mental health, but also an important element of sexual assault and sexual violence prevention.
Finding Help: Resources
For an extensive list or resources for sexual assault victims by state, please visit the following page, maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ):
In addition, these national hotlines are available 24/7/365:
- Domestic Violence Hotline
- 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
- Sexual Assault Hotline
- 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
- StrongHearts Native Helpline
- 1-844-762-8483
- Teen Dating Abuse Helpline
- 1-866-331-9474
- 1-866-331-8453 (TTY)
- Victim Hotline
- 1-855-4-Victim (855-484-2846)
