Forum libero

This paper sets out to interrogate this question, at least in part, by examining Stephen King’s novella The Library Policeman and its authorial foreword. In doing so, I will examine the broader issues that come together to make paedophilia resonate so strongly within contemporary Western culture: namely, the social construct of the child, the eroticism of innocence, and the erroneous yet persistent belief that child abuse—specifically same- sex child abuse—is the crucible in which adult homosexuality is forged. In this neat teleology, homosexuality is the natural outcome of child sexual abuse, and thus all or most homosexuals wish to sexually abuse children in order to make more homosexuals. Needless to say, this teleology casts children in the passive role of victim, thus stripping them of agency. In the case of The Library Policeman, the adult who has survived child sexual abuse is passive and queer—‘ruined’ by his traumatic encounter with a paedophile. King offers a solution: the ‘ruined’ adult male can be healed through an act of redemptive violence against the paedophile; one that affirms the heterosexual adult’s agency and denies the possibility of the child’s sexual pleasure. While such an analysis of the novella would indicate that the homophobic and heteronormative elements of this teleology resound with contemporary audiences, I will conclude by arguing that King’s own cameo appearance within the narrative of The Library Policeman—a meta-fictional appearance that shatters the narrative’s realist form—may inadvertently deconstruct his narrative’s own teleology.
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