Graphic Ad Campaign Aims to Curb Alcohol-Related Sexual Assault

A hard-hitting new ad campaign just launched in Calgary has a simple message for young men: Don’t be that guy.

The campaign aims to raise public awareness about alcohol-related sexual assault and remind young men of the boundaries between consensual sex and criminal sexual assault.

The campaign is unique in that it targets offenders of sexual assault rather than the victims.

“It’s so insidious in our society that we blame the victim for sexual assault,” said Danielle Aubrey, director of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Assault.

“Sexual assault services in particular across North America have been working in the trenches trying to make this kind of shift for quite a number of years. It was incredible leadership by community groups and sexual assault services in Edmonton that pushed it in this direction.”

The “Don’t be that guy” ads were launched in Edmonton in 2010, and have since run in Ottawa, Vancouver, and Saskatoon. Other provinces and countries have reportedly taken an interest in publicizing the campaign in their local areas as well.

The campaign features powerful graphics and strong language, and was originally created by the Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton (SAVE), a coalition between the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, the Edmonton Police Service, and concerned individuals.

Sexual Assault Voices of Calgary have now adopted the campaign for their city.

Aubrey says past campaigns that targeted women, offering techniques and advice on how to protect themselves from becoming victims of sexual assault were “easy, yet totally ineffective.”

In 2010, 62 percent of sexual assaults investigated by the Sex Crimes Unit in Calgary, and over 50 percent investigated in Edmonton, involved a victim who was incapacitated by alcohol or drugs. However, Statistics Canada estimates that less than ten percent of incidents are ever reported to police.

A recent study in the U.K. that helped shape the campaign revealed that 48 percent of respondents, men aged 18 to 25, believed that sex with women too drunk to know what was going on is not rape.

This finding supports statistics that show the most common offenders of alcohol-related sexual assault in Alberta are men between the ages of 18 to 24, who are usually known to the people they assault.

Aubrey says the campaign also serves to educate the public so that they can respond appropriately if a woman they know personally is assaulted.

“We’re really targeting everyone because sexual assault affects everyone. If you have a daughter and this particular kind of crime happens to her, we want the parents to understand what the issues are, because they can be either a support or not a support [to her].”

“As a community, it is important for us to stand together and say this type of behaviour is not acceptable and the consequences are too great,” adds Laurie Blahitka, executive director Public Health, Alberta Health Services.

Posters will be displayed throughout Calgary in bars and clubs, LRT platforms, inside buses and CTrains, as well as in some schools and universities.

According to a 2006 Stats Can report, the province with the highest rates of sexual assault is Nunavut (598 assaults per 100,000 population), followed by the Northwest Territories (373), Yukon (195), Saskatchewan (125), and Manitoba (108).