Vagaries, anxieties and the imagined paedophile: A Victorian case study on mandatory sex offender registration for young adult registrants convicted after non‐consensually distributing intimate images

Abstract

This article focuses on interviews with two Australian young adults (and their parents) who were placed on Victoria’s Sex Offender Register after being convicted of child pornography offences for non‐consensually distributing intimate images. It examines Victoria’s modality of automatic registration—which simultaneously constitutes registrants as paedophilic and responsibilised subjects—and the extent to which this modality was negotiated by both young men. This article also explores the collateral socio‐political consequences of registration on career opportunities, mental health and family relationships, and details how these impacts are modulated by young adulthood.