Terms and Definitions

What do these terms mean?

• Consent – Knowing, voluntary and clear permission, granted by both parties, to engage in mutually agreed upon sexual activity. A person cannot consent if he or she is unable to understand what is happening or is disoriented, helpless, asleep or unconscious for any reason, including due to drugs or alcohol.
  
  
• Dating Violence – Violence committed by a person who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim. Dating violence includes, but is not limited to, sexual or physical abuse or the threat of such abuse.
  
  
• Domestic Violence – Violence committed by 1) a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim; 2) person with whom the victim shares a child; and/or 3) person who has or is cohabitating with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats that influence another person.
  
  
• Sexual Assault – Includes any form of actual or attempted sexual activity perpetrated upon a person without that person’s consent, including sexual behavior coerced through physical or verbal threats, force or other forms of manipulation and sexual behavior when one person cannot give consent due to incapacitation.
  
  
• Sexual Harassment – A form of discrimination consisting of unwelcome, gender-based verbal, written, electronic and/or physical conduct. Sexual harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s gender.
  
  
• Stalking – Unwanted or obsessive attention by an individual, often consisting of the repeated following and harassing of another person, which would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others.