Youth Sexual Cultures

Dr Emily Setty, Department of Sociology

Emily’s research focuses on young people’s contemporary youth sexual cultures, particularly within digital contexts. Emily conducted her doctoral research on digital sexual image sharing among young people, and her recent book ‘Risk and Harm in Youth Sexting Culture: Young People’s Perspectives’ argues for a contextualised, rights-based approach to understanding and responding to the issues they face. Emily has written about the gendered nature of image-based sexual abuse among young people, and the need for interventions to focus on the broader peer collective, in particular the normalisation of abuse within peer culture and the need for bystander intervention.

Emily subsequently conducted ethnographic research in a school to explore young people’s perspectives on sex, relationships, identity and wellbeing in a digital era. Emily is working with this school and expert frontline providers to co-design with students more youth-led models for education about these topics. Emily is also currently working with a newly-established sex and relationship education (SRE) provider to develop and evaluate their innovative digital content for SRE. She works extensively with frontline stakeholders, and is, for example, Digital Awareness UK’s named expert on sexting for the work they do in schools.

Emily continues to write about young people’s contemporary youth sexual cultures, and has forthcoming publications about online pornography, ‘frexting’ among girls, and consent in digital image sharing. Emily is also co-editing an international comparative analysis of sex and relationships education with contributions from esteemed and early-career academics from around the world. She has applied for funding for several further projects connected to her areas of interest, and is open to opportunities for collaboration in research and writing, as well as with stakeholders who are interested in developing education and interventions that better reflect the realities of young people’s lives, meet their diverse needs as developing sexual citizens, and encourage ethical youth sexual cultures.

Dr Emily Setty, Department of Sociology