This short volume examines youth intimacies in Great Britain in the context of digital mediation, which has become the primary means through which teenagers and young people now enter affective, romantic and sexual relationships. It highlights the growing influence of the manosphere in fostering harmful gender norms and toxic relationships, as well as the moral panic generated by the adult gaze that frames youth intimacies as a social problem. The volume argues that youth intimacies need to be better understood through a focus on the quality of young people's intimate lives. It brings together leading scholars in this field to discuss how safe and strong relational intimacies can be formed in theory and in practice. The contributions examine the role played by institutional and cultural factors in shaping youth intimacies, including creative projects around relationships and sex education in schools and universities as well as initiatives led by youth practitioners supporting young people through key life-course transitions. These supportive elements help shape expressions of consent, respect, love, togetherness and emotional well-being.

Corinne Nativel is a Senior lecturer in the Modern Languages and International Relations Department at the University Paris-East Créteil and the Director of the Collège franco-britannique on the Paris International University Campus. She has published 10 books and around 40 journal articles on youth, gender and social policy in English and in French, including with Peter Sunley and Ron Martin, Putting Workfare in Place, Local Labour Markets and the New Deal for Young People (Oxford, Blackwell, 2005), with Anne Daguerre, When Children Become Parents (Bristol, Policy Press, 2006) and with Romain Garbaye and David Fée, Gouverner la diversité culturelle à Londres (Governing Cultural Diversity in London) (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2025). She has recently published several articles and book chapters on domestic abuse policy in Britain and in France.

Chloë Cottrell obtained a PhD from the University of Poitiers in France and is a lecturer in the English department at the University Paris-East Créteil. Her research centres on young masculinities in Britain. Her doctoral thesis explored the perceptions and experiences of young fatherhood in England and Wales. She has published several chapters based on this research ("Les jeunes pères: un groupe sans voix ni visage(s)", Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 2022 and "Support Services in England for Young Fathers Before and During Covid Times”, edited by Anémone Kober-Smith and Anne Beauvallet, Routledge, 2026). She is currently working on a monograph based on her PhD thesis and has started new research on young men, the manosphere and practitioners who work with young men.