Wrapping up our SAAM guest blog series, Dr. Ian Elliott joins us to take apart the concept of grooming.

Before I came to PCAR, I was a stay-at-home dad. If you’re unfamiliar with that labor of love, it’s much like being handed a hang-glider and told to fly to the moon. Unprepared and ill-equipped, I spent the better part of a year free-style singing about household objects, making one ridiculous face after another and (gasp) changing my daughter’s diapers. My little explorer is 15 months old now, and I still can’t bring myself to make any reference to her private parts.

Next up in our guest blog series, Tara Murtha discusses the vital role journalists play in shaping the public perspective of sexual violence.

Lately, it’s been all rape, all the time in the news.

Kicking off our guest blog series, Marylee Sauder talks about how to talk early and talk often with middle school students.

It’s a bleak Friday afternoon in a classroom with a loud, overactive radiator. The 25 eighth-graders are looking straight ahead at the unfamiliar presenter in front of them. Some students are squirming and smirking. Others appear hesitant, and a few look downright distressed.

It’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month! It feels a little weird to be excited – it’s great to bring the conversation out into the open, but obviously not a comfortable conversation. Too often people feel it’s a conversation that isn’t necessary – though recent events have proven otherwise – or we wind up preaching to the choir.

My wife is a huge fan of football. I’m not, but I’m a huge fan of my wife, so we celebrated a successful move to the new apartment by watching the Super Bowl. Ignoring that one team harbors an obstructer of justice and one team is appallingly homophobic, the whole experience was just plain stupid.

A version of this article was originally posted on the UMN Women’s Center Blog.

Child sexual abuse is prevalent in our society. One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused or assaulted before they reach age 18. Abuse knows no bounds and occurs among all races, religions and socioeconomic levels. Many people find it shocking to learn that nine out of 10 times, the abuser is someone the child or teenager knows and trusts.