Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting [Paperback]

James Kincaid (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 1998

In Erotic Innocence James R. Kincaid explores contemporary America’s preoccupation with stories about the sexual abuse of children. Claiming that our culture has yet to come to terms with the bungled legacy of Victorian sexuality, Kincaid examines how children and images of youth are idealized, fetishized, and eroticized in everyday culture. Evoking the cyclic elements of Gothic narrative, he thoughtfully and convincingly concludes that the only way to break this cycle is to acknowledge—and confront—not only the sensuality of children but the eroticism loaded onto them.
Drawing on a number of wide-ranging and well-publicized cases as well as scandals involving such celebrities as Michael Jackson and Woody Allen, Kincaid looks at issues surrounding children’s testimonies, accusations against priests and day-care centers, and the horrifying yet persistently intriguing rumors of satanic cults and “kiddie porn” rings. In analyzing the particular form of popularity shared by such child stars such Shirley Temple and Macaulay Culkin, he exposes the strategies we have devised to deny our own role in the sexualization of children. Finally, Kincaid reminds us how other forms of abuse inflicted on children—neglect, abandonment, inadequate nutrition, poor education—are often overlooked in favor of the sensationalized sexual abuse coverage in the news, on daytime TV talk shows, and in the elevators and cafeterias of America each day.
This bold and critically enlightened book will interest readers across a wide range of disciplines as well as a larger general audience interested in American culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

According to the media, the sexual abuse of children has reached epidemic proportions, and those who do not think so are in denial. English professor Kincaid (Annoying the Victorians, Routledge, 1994) uses the model of the Gothic novel to explore the origin of this concept, showing that by employing Victorian and Freudian ideas our society has simultaneously idealized and eroticized images of children and youth. Citing examples from the tabloids, celebrity trials, and popular movies starring children, the author explains society's need for horrors such as ritual abuse, "kiddie porn," and accusations against clergy and day care workers. Preoccupation with this misguided sexuality allows the public to ignore the poverty, neglect, malnutrition, and poor education that constitute true child abuse. Kincaid suggests abandoning the Gothic model and acknowledging that erotic feelings are a normal part of life that rational adults can control. Written with clarity and wit, hers is a timely, interesting book. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.?Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A compelling cultural history of children and sexual desire. Kincaid, a professor of English at the University of Southern California, seems to have screened every movie that ever featured a child, and his reading list is extensive as well. He takes on some obvious targets, like the legions of child actors whose images are the very essence of innocence and purity, but whose photos and mannerisms belie a darker knowledge of desire. It's no accident that child stars seem always to be photographed in the same way: eyes wide, mouth opened in a smile. It's a sexual gaze, says Kincaid, and while adults may argue that childrens images are entirely free of sexual connotations, there can be no doubt that these children serve as erotic objects and fetishes to the culture at large. He also calls attention to widespread hysteria over childhood knowledge of sex: the threat of kidnapping, the fear of abuse in day-care centers, the fear of the Internet being used by pedophiles. Never mind the fact that only about 100 children a year are abducted by strangers, that the McMartin day-care case was a horrible sham, or that Internet ads for ``kiddie porn are nearly always police-run dragnets. The war against such nonexistent crimes, Kincaid writes, masks the real abuse to children, like poverty, physical abuse, and simple indifference. What Kincaid proposes in this cogent work (though it's marred by some overly snide asides) is that we accept that our children are sexual creatures and dispense with hysteria in favor of a frank and reasoned approach to a subject thoroughly obscured, at present, by fear and sensationalism. Often fascinating and sure to spark controversy among the recovered-memory and Courage to Heal set. (24 illustrations) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (May 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822321939
• ISBN-13: 978-0822321934
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 5.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #514,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 69 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Startling Thesis, Flawed Book April 10, 2003

By Christopher Schmitz

Format:Paperback

Back in the 1950s, Leslie Fiedler stunned America with his thesis that the great American novels were homoerotic love stories: Huck and Jim in "Huckleberry Finn," Ishmael and Queequeg in "Moby Dick," etc. He seemed correct as well as sensational, and American writing since Fiedler's magnum opus "Love and Death in the America Novel" and his jarring essay "Come Back to the Raft again Huck Honey" has only buttressed his point.

James Kinkaid has made an even bolder claim a half-century later, that pedophile fantasy can be found at the heart of our most revered movies like "The Good Ship Lollipop" or "Home Alone." "Our culture has enthusiastically sexualized the child while denying just as enthusiatically that it was doing any such thing," he writes, capsulizing his argument. I think this claim in intuitively true. A lot of films show kids in their underwear gratuitously and use the ambivalence of art to insinuate what taboo dictates cannot be directly stated. Macaulay Culkin in the "Home Alone" movies is a beautiful blonde with unnatural cherry-red lips like Harlowe or Monroe!

But the conclusions Kinkaid draws from his observations aren't as forceful and eloquent as the debunking observations themselves. If he is right, what does this mean? His answer seems to be kind of vague. He suggests we rewrite the Gothic script and stop overrating innocence and panicking about the burgeoning sexuality of the young. His pervasive humor throughout the book suggests a kind a campy scholarship. I am all for humor, but I think Kinkaid needs to write another book about how our society can get out of the quandary of its sexual hypocrisy. It's a larger and more complex subject than he seems to think.... Also, he chooses his pictures poorly, and I think they're essential to making his points about the eroticized child.

I hope these misgivings don't steer you away from "Erotic Innocence" though. Its a totally fresh perspective, and how many books deliver that anymore? Read it as the opening slavo of what I'm predicting will be a long 21st century battle between the prigs and the libertarians. Read more ›

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Of Babes and Monsters October 17, 2008

By southpaw68 VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Kincaid takes on a droll tone throughout this book that urges us to examine our relationship to children. Kincaid wishes to get rid of the paranoia and hysteria around the threat of child molesting and provides some evidence that adults are somewhat sexually attracted to children, but loath to admit it. If we admitted the attraction and stopped treating it like a sick perversion we could live in a saner, less fearful environment. Our culture also celebrates the childlike features as sexual, but we condemn those who get too turned on by them. Beauty contests for children are given as an example of our making children sexy. Kincaid suggests that we stop looking for monsters and sinister purposes in others, thinking that they are potential child molesters. We should stop passing draconian laws that give godlike powers to the police. And we should not accuse others of being child molesters for advocating a lighter approach to child molesting problems.

Kincaid thinks that we are trapped in a never-ending gothic story of a monster that comes after our children and violates their innocence .We then do a lot of porn babbling about the events as if to say, "It is an awful unspeakable story. Please tell it to me in every detail again." The child molesting stories serve prurient interests in adults, sexually titillating them.

Kincaid goes over films and books and pulls out the sexual overtones of child characters in entertainment such as Shirley Temple with her flirtations and kids in their underwear for half of the movie. When a child star reaches adolescence people often forget them since they are no longer cute, but are gangly, awkward looking teenagers.... Adult movie goers often make these kiddy films big hits, especially if they produce nostalgia or images of the perfect adorable child along with butt and penis jokes. This also says something about the people producing the films, I must say. I have also noticed on junk TV talk shows, they will have sexy problem children sexually act out by doing a dance, for instance, before they get down to business of trying to cure the child or teen's precociousness. This has a way of arousing the audience and then condemning the sexiness afterwards. Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

People are also indifferent to the many physically abused and neglected kids who are not so cute or adorable. There are a lot of runaway and throwaway kids, but people focus on child abduction and molesting cases rather than deal with the larger and mundane problems of child neglect.

Kincaid encourages us to "change the story" about child molesting so that we can look at the problems another way and quit producing a culture that produces child molesting, monsters, hypocrites, paranoia, and violent vigilante reactions. We seem unwilling to understand ourselves fully.

We should question the innocence of children, which comes from romantic notions of the child. Kincaid asserts that children can be sexy naturally and are not that innocent; it is our romantic notions that make them seem innocent. We should question the veracity of children's testimony and recovered memories from hypnotized adults. He goes over some of the more dubious accusations of child molesting such as the McMartin daycare case which started with a phone call from a paranoid schizophrenic. Child testimony can also be tainted if questions are leading. Often in our culture, if someone is accused of child molesting the public already wants to believe that the accused is guilty and they tend to overlook any contradictions in the testimony against the accused. False accusations of child molesting ruin people's lives.

Kincaid makes light of a usually grave topic, perhaps too much so from time to time. But he does show that some of the brouhaha around child molestation is due to paranoia and hysteria. I think that there is more serious side to it that he does not address. Read more ›

37 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book attempts to resolve a terrible dilemma. February 21, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Kincaid begins from the premise that our culture's stories are flexible, and reflect our underlying cosmologies. He demonstrates convincingly that myths about childhood innocence and concurrent vulnerability arose historically as we created a separate cultural identity for children. This stoked a quasi-erotic love of children as innocents, and a hatred of those who act out that eroticism. There is a widespread obsession with children, and an obsession with those who act on that societally generated eroticism. Those who are inclined to hate have fostered a bitter hatred of those who are trapped by the wrong kind of love of children. Dahmers and Gacys are rare and twisted individuals, but they are held up by these haters as representatives of all who break the rules for touching and loving children. Kincaid shows, though, that society dotes on cute, eroticized children, as long as appropriate hypocrisies are maintained. He suggests that the frenzied hatred of child-abusers is fed by this same hypocritical eroticism. Up to this point, Kincaid is bold and persuasive. Children themselves become damaged by the myth, being taught that be be desired or contacted erotically by an adult is to become the most damaged of society's victims, and even potential abusers themselves, and that any love expressed in these relationships, perhaps by the only adult who has shown them love, is absolutely thereby discounted. The truth is that "hard-core" sexual contact with children is a harmful and abusive practice, and only the most blind or self-serving can deny this. Kincaid does not attempt to deny this, although he questions its frequency.... Kincaid challenges all of us to find ways to reconcile the awareness of this cold harm with our "warm" behaviors in the unmapped areas of love. The book fails however in developing effective and compelling alternative stories. The tortuous paradigm he describes throughout the book exists, besides serving a "pleasure-principle motive", as a societal adaptation to prevent a shift into the wholesale abuse of children. The current and hypocritical arrangement kills and imprisons some relativey innocent adults as a means of controlling and containing erotic impulsivity towards children, but much of life seems to work this way. We may need new stories if we are to act in a more wholesome and communally suportive fashion, but Dr. Kincaid does not succeed in outlining them. Thus the pain and hurt (and titillation) will go on. Maybe there are no better stories. Still, the gauntlet has been flung. Read more ›