Discusses conceptions of innocent children and of normality as connected to whiteness, middle-classness and asexuality. Analyses the symbolic connections of children and animals and the influence of psychoanalytical thought on contemporary ideas of childhood. The position of gay children is discussed as well as children’s relations with pedophiles. Analysis of films and novels are essential content. The concluding notion is that in contemporary western culture and society all children appear to adults as queer, because developmental trajectories are ill-suited to actual young people’s lives.