This paper examines cultural representations of intimacy and social change in four Mexican self-help books. They portray in an emblematic manner current cultural debates and tensions in Mexican society regarding the social organisation of couple relationships and sexuality. Their narratives are characterised by an ambiguous position between the assertion of patriarchal cultural models and the acknowledgement of trends towards alternative, egalitarian and love-based relationship forms. I use the analysis of these texts to bring to the fore central patterns, tensions, and conflicts that are characteristic of the cultural dynamics of gender relations and intimate life in contemporary Mexico
