Assuming that the categories used to define "social problems" affect the ways those are understood and administered, this paper analyzes how the combat against sexual violence against children has mobilized the notion of "pedophilia," with focus on child pornography on the internet. The hypothesis is that this "anti-pedophilia crusade" blurs the boundaries between sexual acts and fantasies, producing a political focus shift from the inequality of power to the dangers related to sexual perversion. The empirical sources of this project are the legislative debates within the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Pedophilia, in the Brazilian Federal Senate; and one of the police inquiries accessed during ethnographic fieldwork at the Federal Police Department. Finally, some effects of the "anti-pedophilia crusade" are discussed.
pedophilia; child pornography; sexual fantasies; crime