What teenage boys think of Adolescence Toxic masculinity 'is so normalised' now

Everyone from the prime minister down seems to have a view on Adolescence, the Netflix hit series about a teenage murder fuelled by social media and toxic masculinity.

- Helen Pidd

But one voice missing from the debate is that of teenage boys themselves. The Guardian gathered a group of sixth-formers from Xaverian college in Manchester to get their views on the show, and find out what it is really like to be a teenage boy in Britain today.

In Adolescence, an intimate picture of a girl has circulated round the school – a scenario familiar to all of the Xaverian boys. Archie, 18, said: "I'd say there's a laddish culture where a lot of young men, if they've got a girlfriend, or they're talking to a young girl or whatever, and they get an intimate picture of a young girl, it's almost like they're encouraged by their mates to show it to each other and to send it around. I just feel like it's so normalised, and everyone's almost expected to do it."

The main character in the TV show, 13-year-old Jamie, has some alarming views about girls that he appears to have picked up online and from pornography.

René, 18, said he was first exposed to pornography aged 10 or 11. "Too young! I think I was in a group chat somewhere, and I saw it, and it was like the most weird thing to me ever, because I'd never seen anything of the sort, and I didn't want to see it at that time."