Around UC Davis residence halls, on Unitrans buses and in bars and apartments in town students are giving a new set of provocative posters a long look. And young people at schools and universities around the nation and the world are waiting to check the ads out. One displays a young man with his lips pressed to his girlfriend's bare stomach. The text reads: "You are laughing. You are touching. She tenses up. Is she shy or afraid to say, 'stop'?" The posters -- four in all -- were developed as part of a "Voices Not Victims" campaign sponsored by the UC Davis Campus Violence Prevention Program and designed by Oakland advocacy advertising firm Slingshot Productions. Far more than a simple rape awareness project, the campaign asks students to think about sexual communication and mutually establishing comfort zones with their partner. Violence prevention peer educator Sarah Blanchette says the posters make her job easier. "Students have all seen them," she said. "It stirs up dialogues." The campus violence prevention office has been receiving requests for the posters from around the country and the world. Ms. Magazine featured the ads and other rape awareness spots that Slingshot has produced in the "Applause" section of its April/May issue. The University of Texas has ordered posters for its campus rape awareness program, and the Ohio Catholic schools want the images. And recently, Jennifer Beeman, director of the violence prevention office, received a request from the Ford Foundation's office in Africa for the posters and permission to translate them into Swahili, a language spoken in eastern and central Africa. "This campaign was really specifically intended to start conversation, and it really has -- in a very positive way," Beeman said. On the UC Davis campus, those conversations have already led to action by students struggling over sexual boundaries. Since the posters went up around campus and in town last October, the number of students who have visited Beeman's office seeking information or help has doubled, she said. That means, she said, the campaign has been "incredibly successful." The "Voices Not Victims" program was developed through a portion of a $540,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Violence Against Women Office. UC Davis was one of 40 colleges in the country to receive a Grant to Combat Violent Crimes Against Women. To augment the ad campaign, UC Davis is also developing a Web-based interactive CD-ROM program that allows students to explore their attitudes toward violence against women. Beeman plans to distribute the program to every college in the country. The Voices Not Victims program has been so successful, Beeman hopes to receive a grant extension to share the campaign's messages with other area campuses, such as California State University, Sacramento, and Sacramento-area community colleges. With the help of a counselor from Sacramento's Women Escaping a Violent Environment, Beeman plans to study the impact the ads have on commuter schools. More information about the "Voices Not Victims" program can be found at http://voicesnotvictims.org.