Adultes “encore” jeunes, jeunes “déjà” adultes ?

This article studies the social construction of ages, and particularly of youth and the passage towards adulthood. Based on the results of qualitative research on sexuality and masculinity among young Moroccan men (between 20-30), immigrants in Europe, the text proposes studying the transition towards adulthood from the angle of the processes of gender identification and the interviewees’ sexual experience. The article shows how the power of heterosexuality, whose action is imbricated with the expression of intra- and inter-generational and intra- and intercultural relations, fashions age representations for these young men and participates in producing significations attri­buted to their biographical experiences in a migrant milieu. The goal is to show the interest in approaching age categories in terms of gender and sexuality in order to envisage youth and the transition towards adulthood as social relationships fitting into a wider ensemble of relationships of domination.