The Enkidu Summer Conference 2008: Storytelling, Memories and Identity Constructions

México City, 3 - 7 July, 2008

Spectre/ Retrospect:Memoir and the Mythic Paedophile

J. Fergus Evans

Department of Gender, Sexuality and Culture 

University of Manchester

Reino Unido

In the summer of 2000, the News of the World published the names, photographs, and locations of people it claimed had perpetrated sex crimes against children. The ensuing controversy illustrates the complicated ways in which the UK constructs and deals with issues like child sexuality and paedophilia. And yet soon after a number of books came out to critical and popular acclaim, books which seemed to question the notion of intergenerational sex as being wholly abusive. 'Spectre/ Retrospect: Memoir and the Myth of the Paedophile' investigates to what extent these books actually challenge the notion of the paedophile and the agency of children in intergenerational sex. This paper contextualises this phenomenon examining the News of the World 'Name and Shame' campaign and the public response. 

Perhaps most interesting is the extent to which the actions of communities against members they thought to be paedophiles went un-interrogated, even when the actions were violent in the extreme. This silence on the part of mainstream media is investigated by my paper, as well as the language used to describe both the criminal and the crime. 

Using these analyses as a starting point, I then conjecture that the paedophile has become a Foucaultian type, and examine the importance of such a type in society. I also look at the historical construction of the paedophile as criminal. Current understandings of the paedophile and children's sexuality may actually endanger children by obscuring of incestuous paedophilia by focusing on the myth of the paedophile as predatory stranger, and the almost total erasure of children's agency in their sexuality can make therapy for victims of sexual abuse ineffective, as victims are not allowed to express ambivalence or affection for their abusers. 

Having established that it is not the interest of the child which drives legal and social practice, I argue that society has an intense investment in constructing the child as powerless to maintain an unbalanced discourse which favours adults. And yet there is the popularity of books such as Augusten Burroughs' 'Running with Scissors', JT LeRoy's 'Sarah' and 'The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things', and Scott Heim's 'Mysterious Skin' to consider. 

All of these books seem to grant their narrators some agency in intergenerational sex. However, I argue that the use of the memoir as narrative device allows the adult narrator to take the place of the child. In this way these books do not complicate the notion of child as non-agent. Is there any indication of a change in attitude towards children's sexuality? I would argue that there are a few (P-P Hartnett's i WANT TO FUCK YOU is a good example). Because, as Gayle Rubin has argued, changes in the stigmatization of certain sexualities and sex acts can have immense impacts on power dynamics within the larger culture, this paper argues that even these few examples are extremely important and warrant further investigation by sexual and cultural theorists.

About J. Fergus Evans

J. Fergus Evans is an academic, activist and artist based in Manchester. He received his BA in Sociology from Georgia State University and is currently completing his MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture at the University of Manchester.