Members of Longmont’s community who are dedicated to bringing awareness of and ending child abuse planted 300 pinwheels in Roosevelt Park on Tuesday. But this isn’t the only way they are bringing awareness to Longmont.
Blue Sky Bridge — a Boulder County nonprofit that is committed to ending child abuse by fostering safe communities and providing a place for abuse victims to heal — offers help to children who have experienced abuse. The 300 pinwheels whirling outside the activity pool at Roosevelt Park represent the 300 children the nonprofit will help this year, said Melissa Santorelli, development and communications associate for Blue Sky Bridge.
Pinwheel gardens are set up throughout Longmont in recognition that April is Child Abuse Awareness Month.
There are many different ways children experience abuse, but a lesser considered one is when pornography is used as a tool to groom children.
Blue Sky Bridge will host a screening of “Raised on Porn: The New Sex Ed” at Front Range Community College at 6 p.m. on April 24. The documentary expresses “the concerns of children being exposed to pornography before they’re ready,” Santorelli said. Registration is required.
Following the movie, the group will facilitate a discussion that teaches participants how to create an open dialogue for different age groups.
Santorelli said she has found statistics that have found statistics that show more than half of eighth graders have viewed pornography. With statistics like this, Blue Sky Bridge felt it was important to bring awareness to the topic in Boulder County in a non-shaming way, Santorelli said.
“It is meant to have this preparation versus prevention angle because we know — unfortunately — that no matter how many safeguards parents put on computers and on Chromebooks and phones, kids are going to find ways to access (pornography) and the purpose of this (the movie screening and facilitated discussion) is to create open dialogue so that parents can have conversations with their children,” Santorelli said.
Gretchen Fair, education associate for Blue Sky Bridge said conversation is the key to learning whether or not your child has been exposed to pornography and the conversation can’t start too early. She said simply asking a young child if they have seen photos or videos of people without their clothes on can lead to a conversation on the topic.
One of the major concerns about children being exposed to pornography is that pornography does not depict the reality of sex or sexuality.
“The content that is out there about sex and sexuality is not representative of reality. The reason that is an important message is because they (teens and adolescents) don’t know — they don’t have any other experience,” Fair said.
This lack of experience for all children is one of the ways pornography can sometimes be used as a grooming tool for sexual predators, according to Det. Cody Clark at the Longmont Police Department.
Clark said most child abuse cases he works on involve someone the child knows. In many of these cases, this known individual begins a grooming process that includes isolating the child from their family through what may seem like an innocuous thing such as going to a baseball game. If the perpetrator has intentions of abusing the child, they will often begin conversations about sex or pornography or other topics children are curious about in order to gain trust, Clark said.
Although Clark only had anecdotal evidence, he said there has been a rise in child abuse cases involving pornography. He said, he often believes pornography has been used in other cases but cannot prove it because victims may feel shame or be innoculated to pornography that they don’t realize it was part of the process.
“Awareness is one of the biggest issues that parents tend to overlook,” Clark said.
Fair recognized that talking to children and teens about sex and pornography is often awkward and uncomfortable, but by acknowledging that and moving through it, parents can frame a more positive idea of sex and sexuality for their children.
“Ignoring it isn’t an option, although it is very, very tempting,” Fair said.
