Nostalgia for a Childhood Without: Implications of the Adult Gaze on Childhood and Young Adult Sexuality

This paper examines the adult gaze on children’s literature through the lens of Eric Tribunella’s article “From Kiddie Lit to Kiddie Porn” (2008) which explores the implications of child sexuality through an examination of Chris Kent’s parodies of The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne and Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes. Introducing Kincaid’s term ‘child-loving, ’ I explore the implications of the types of ‘child-loving ’ as they are examined in children’s and young adult literature. This paper uses Nothing by Janne Teller, Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers, and Patricia McCormick’s Sold to determine how an adult gaze lands upon childhood sexuality that is averse to the constructed culture of childhood innocence and asexuality, and where then the gaze is averted, implicated or nostalgic. I reference Laura Mulvey (1999) and Clifford Manlove (2007) as my basis for the analysis of the gaze as I aim to define levels of ‘child-loving ’ and nostalgic idealizations as an adult gaze complicates desire for the child, innocence, and the past