Reimagining Relationships and Sex Education

A Safe Uncertainty Approach to Adolescent Intimacies

Emily Setty, Jonny Hunt

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781805928003
• eBook ISBN: 9781805928010
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Secondary Education
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Editor
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Creating Space for Uncertainty
• 1. Rethinking Relationships and Sex Education and Adolescent Intimacies
• 2. Safe Uncertainty: A Pedagogical Framework for Adolescent Intimacies and Relationships and Sex Education
• 3. Creating Safe(r) Spaces to Explore Uncertainty
• 4. Why Safe Certainty Is Inadequate for Consent: Navigating Ambiguity and Ambivalence in Adolescent Intimacies
• 5. Gender Power Dynamics in Adolescent Relationships
• 6. Digital Intimacies
• 7. Online Sexual Learning and Sex Media
• 8. Rethinking ‘Healthy’ and ‘Unhealthy’ Relationships Through Safe Uncertainty
• Conclusion: Reimagining RSE for the Future
• References