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The 1980s saw both a return and rise to box office prominence of the once-popular Sword and Sorcery genre. Following on from Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance as Conan the Barbarian (1982), a raft of imitators followed. On the one hand, there were films like Krull (1983) and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) with their big budgets and excellent casts. On the other were their ‘spaghetti’ variations, such as Conquest (1983), Hercules (1983) and the Ator (1982–1990) series, where poor production values, doleful acting, and even more atrocious dubbing remained more frightening than any monsters the hero encountered.

For the most part, the sword and sorcery genre predominantly focused on the male in the canon. However, using Yvonne Tasker's (1993) work on spectacular and hard bodies in action cinema, this chapter will provide an analysis of how female characters in the sword and sorcery genre are portrayed, using Barbarian Queen (1985) as a case study.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to trace the history of the cultural myth that children, especially boys, experience an abrupt heterosexual awakening during pubescence, from its origin during the 1950s to the present, with particular attention to a decrease in the age posited for such an awakening, from fourteen or fifteen to eight or nine or even earlier, until finally children are presented as heterosexually desiring from birth.

Methodology – The methodology is a content analysis of a sample of mass media texts starring or featuring prepubescent or pubescent boys, including films, television programs, comic books, comic strips, and juvenile novels, appearing in the United States between 1950 and 2007.

Findings – The rapid decrease in the age is correlated with an increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents, leading to the conclusion that it results from an attempt to privilege heterosexuality by making it appear a natural, inevitable outcome of biological maturation that is absent until puberty, whereas at the same time addressing homophobic insistence that no juvenile character be presented as gay by ensuring all characters, regardless of age, express heterosexual desire.

Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to a single causal factor, but it illustrates a complex cultural phenomenon, a shift in the way childhood is constructed, so there are doubtless other factors that should be explored. It is also necessary to explore why the change from presumed pubescent heterosexual awakening to presumed constitutional heterosexuality occurred at different rates depending on the race and social class of the character and the medium presented.