Virtual Pedophilia

“The explosive subject of pedophilia too often generates social hysteria. In Virtual Pedophilia Gillian Harkins counters that response with an impressively researched multidisciplinary analysis of the emergence of the cultural figure of ‘the pedophile’ in the late twentieth century. But even more importantly, her lucid, pointed, and politically urgent provocations make this one of the most important books on sexual politics published in the past twenty years.” - Lisa Duggan, author of Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed

“It takes a century to not catch a predator: to birth him as a white man we can never net. Why can't we catch him? We can't see him. He's a white needle in a very white haystack. With statistics pooling, information flooding, he more eludes. He becomes ‘virtual,’ which bears devastating racial effects for communities of color. Expect this original, astonishing weave in Gillian Harkins' arresting new book. Tying together racial critique, feminist and sexuality studies, and legal discourse, Harkins proffers razor-sharp claims that challenge several fields—even queer theory. At every turn in this gripping read, I feel the author's crackling intelligence.” - Kathryn Bond Stockton, author of The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century

“Virtual Pedophilia is an important and necessary book with far-ranging implications for multiple fields of study as well as for scholarly and activist interventions in cultures of surveillance, mass incarceration, and pathologization.” - Gabrielle Owen, American Literary History