This research investigates the social representations of risky sexual practices. Specifically, it analyses the circumstances in which young Spanish people represent a sexual practice as risky, and how the representation of risk has implications for decisions about using condoms. The Grid Elaboration Method was used to gather the naturalistic thoughts and feelings of 175 young people regarding risky sexual practices. The content of the responses was analysed by lexical analysis using Iramuteq software. The results of the analysis suggested two main textual universes regarding risky sexual practices. The first of these, at a theoretical-informative level, is clearly linked to the discourse of experts, where condom use is a key factor and risk is distanced from the self. And the second, at a practical-applied level, represents risky sexual practices in a context that is linked to the unknown and the lack of control due to the use of substances or the spontaneity of the sexual encounter. The concept of risk is concluded to emerge from various sources of information, values, or social conventions that articulate everyday understanding and are likely to guide sexual practice, some of which are far removed from the expert knowledge of risk. The representation of risk in sexual relations is therefore understood to be situated within a social context. The substantive, theoretical, and practical consequences of this social construction of risk are discussed as the major contributions of this paper.