Emily Setty – författare

This book draws upon interviews with teenage young people to explore their perspectives on risk and harm in ‘youth sexting culture’. It focuses specifically on digital sexual image-sharing among young people. It contextualises the findings in terms of the wider literature on youth sexting and the broader theoretical and conceptual debates about the phenomenon in public and academic spheres. The book explores young people’s attitudes toward and experiences of non-consensual sexting and privacy violations. It analyses the broader sociocultural context to youth sexting and discusses issues such as victim-blaming, social shaming and bullying within youth sexting culture. It reflects upon the nature of predominant approaches to responding to youth sexting (both legal and educational/pedagogic) and identifies what young people want and need when it comes to addressing risk and harm, based upon what the evidence shows about their situated realities and lived experiences.Public and academic discourse surrounding youth sexting, and the legal and educational policy responses to the phenomenon have developed and changed over recent years. The field is increasingly contested and there are ongoing debates about how to protect young people from harm while respecting their rights as individuals and encouraging them to develop into ethical sexual citizens, including within digital environments. This book presents empirical data to show how risk and harm in youth sexting culture is predicated upon a denial of rights to sexual and bodily integrity, autonomy and legitimacy.

This book draws upon interviews with teenage young people to explore their perspectives on risk and harm in ‘youth sexting culture’. It focuses specifically on digital sexual image-sharing among young people. It contextualises the findings in terms of the wider literature on youth sexting and the broader theoretical and conceptual debates about the phenomenon in public and academic spheres. The book explores young people’s attitudes toward and experiences of non-consensual sexting and privacy violations. It analyses the broader sociocultural context to youth sexting and discusses issues such as victim-blaming, social shaming and bullying within youth sexting culture. It reflects upon the nature of predominant approaches to responding to youth sexting (both legal and educational/pedagogic) and identifies what young people want and need when it comes to addressing risk and harm, based upon what the evidence shows about their situated realities and lived experiences.Public and academic discourse surrounding youth sexting, and the legal and educational policy responses to the phenomenon have developed and changed over recent years. The field is increasingly contested and there are ongoing debates about how to protect young people from harm while respecting their rights as individuals and encouraging them to develop into ethical sexual citizens, including within digital environments. This book presents empirical data to show how risk and harm in youth sexting culture is predicated upon a denial of rights to sexual and bodily integrity, autonomy and legitimacy.

At a time when concerns about sexual violence, online harms and the efficacy of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) frameworks are at the forefront of public discourse, this book offers a timely and necessary intervention. Presenting the concept of ‘safe uncertainty’ as a transformative framework for understanding adolescent intimacies and relationships, authors Setty and Hunt critique current deficit models in relationships and sex education in place of a more nuanced engagement with digital intimacies, online sexual learning and sex media, healthy relationships, gender and consent.Traditional approaches to RSE, while well-intentioned, can reduce complex social and emotional dynamics to simplistic binaries, leaving young people ill-equipped to navigate the inherent ambivalences and ambiguities of intimacy and relationality. Drawing on original research and case studies from the authors’ practice, this text demonstrates how safe uncertainty acknowledges ambiguity and ambivalence as integral parts of relationships and intimacy and involves creating environments where young people can explore their perspectives and experiences without fear of judgment or rigid moral or legal solutions. Aligned with a broader need for relational, developmental and contextual approaches to understanding adolescent intimacies, Setty and Hunt explore how this framework encourages educators, policymakers and researchers to move beyond knowledge-transfer models and instead focus on equipping young people with the skills to navigate uncertainty in ways that promote emotional resilience and ethical decision-making as sexual citizens.Connecting the concept of safe uncertainty with critical debates on consent, gender and digital culture, this timely contribution bridges gaps between research, practice and policy on both a national and an international scale.

This book presents research conducted with children and young people about online harms, with a UK focus, while aiming to stimulate comparative analyses of other countries too.