Based on an ethnographic fieldwork carried out within the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (PIC) on Pedophilia, in the Brazilian Federal Senate, and the police inquiries of the Federal Police Department, the aim of this paper is to analyze the interconnection between the construction of "pedophilia" as both a political cause and a police case and the consequent production of the "pedophile" as the contemporary monster. In the ethnographic description of the public arena of the PIC, special attention is conferred to the centrality of emotions and to the political use of the images of child pornography. In the police investigations, on the other hand, the focus is directed to the police action of identification of "facts" and incrimination of the "culprit". Finally, it is suggested that the main "targets" of this "antipedophilia crusade" are blamed not so much for what they do (share, distribute, acquire, possess or store pornographic images involving minors), but because of the dangers associated with their desires. The hypothesis of the paper is that this is the main reason for the common confusion between "child pornography on the internet" and "pedophilia" in the public discourses.
Pedophilia; Child Pornography; Politics; Police