LANSING - Sexual assault appears to be a rising epidemic on college campuses. In fact, it is proven that 90% of sexual assault victims choose NOT to report the incident. With that being said, a bill introduced last fall have people questioning what yes really means.

“When someone tells you no it’s like you have to reevaluate your actions,” Michigan State University student Asia Tennille mentioned.

“If somebody said no to me I would perceive that as just leave them alone and just stay away from them and stop bothering them,” Brandon Walling; MSU Communication student stated.

When individuals were asked what they would do if the situation was reversed and “yes” was being implied in a sexual scenario…this was their response:

“If they're saying yes and obviously there's other cues that go into it that means they're open to any kind of sexual encounter,” MSU Doctoral student Julia Decook said.

“I would say yes if it was a sober moment and maybe it was a date or it was a comfortable situation,” Michigan State University Psychology student Daniel Moltz mentioned.

According to Senator Curtis Hertel Jr., 1 in 5 sexual assault victims appear to be women and he’s hoping to change that.

“There's some confusion about consent unfortunately and it’s leading to a dangerous situation on college campuses,” Hertel said.

Because of this confusion, Senator Hertel introduced the “Yes Means Yes” bill.

“Yes means yes is talking about affirmative consent. Right now we focus on ‘no means no’ when it comes to high school sex education classes and ‘no means no’ is good, but it doesn't get to the point of dealing with a lot of the situations that women encounter and men encounter on college campuses.” Hertel stated.

The goal is to implement this potential legislation into all high school sexual education courses to help kids understand consent.

“Teaching them that consent means both partners agree, teaching them that if somebody is incapacitated they can't give consent…we think that’s really important and will lead to better protections for college kids,” said Hertel.

The Senator ultimately feels that by teaching kids about affirmative consent, that sexual assault rates will decrease on college campuses across the state.

“I think teaching people respect for their own body and also the body of their partner is one way we can actually move forward and try to end this epidemic,” Hertel mentioned.

Currently, the “Yes mean Yes” bill is sitting at a standstill on the Education Committee and Senator Hertel plans to make his way to different college campuses across the state to speak about the proposed legislation.