A history of constructions of child and youth sexualities : innocence, vulnerability, and the construction of the normative citizen subject

This chapter provides an historical and contemporary overview of the relationships between childhood, youth, and sexuality in Western countries. We view the categories of childhood and youth and the relationship they have with sexuality as historically, socially, and politically constructed (Scott 1998). The discourse of childhood innocence is foundational to the emotional capital inherent in contemporary perceptions of childhood, underpinning the social practices operating around children and young people in Western contexts. Joan Scott (1998, 5) aptly points out that politics is “the process by which plays of power and knowledge constitute identity and experience.” We understand emotional capital through a sociological framework as being related to individual, institutional, and governmental policies and practices.