Dr Alex Dymock

Staff details

Dr Alex Dymock

Position

Interim Head of Law

Department

Law

Email

A.Dymock (@gold.ac.uk)

Alex's research focuses on criminal law and criminal justice, sexuality, drugs, feminist and queer theory

My research interests include sex and sexuality, drug use and drug policy, criminal law and criminal justice, biotechnologies, bioethics and biopolitics, feminist and queer theory.

Over the past few years my work has focused on the intersections of cultures of drug use, sexual cultures, and the law. I recently completed a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust project investigating the 'underground' use of psychedelics to manage sexual trauma in the context of a rapidly shifting legal landscape around these substances. I've also guest-curated an exhibition on sex and psychedelics, currently on view at the Museum of Sex in New York:
https://www.museumofsex.com/exhibitions/higher-love-the-psychedelic-roots-of-modern-sexuality/

I joined Goldsmiths from Royal Holloway, University of London, where I was Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Law. I have been a Visiting Scholar at the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law. I am an Associate Editor of the journal, Psychedelics.

Teaching and supervision

I warmly welcome enquiries about PhD supervision in any of my areas of specialism.

I have supervised or co-supervised PhDs on a wide range of topics, including on the criminalisation of young people who 'sext'; HIV medicine use in Nigeria; sexual ethics, drugs and consent; pornography consumption and trangression; and the biopolitics of PrEP reluctance.

Law

Research interests

My current principal interests are sexual cultures, cultures of drug use, the intersections between the two, and their interaction in public health and criminal justice. I am particularly interested in the meanings we attach to sex-related drug use now and historically, intoxication, sobriety and the law, and the relationship between the effects of enhancement and repair.

My most recent completed project concerns the interaction between sexuality and psychedelics. This research examines how and why people use psychedelic drugs to manage sexual trauma (subjectively defined). Although psychedelics remain criminalised, they are increasingly hailed as effective mental health technologies. I am particularly interested in how people relate their experiences with these substances in the context of 'underground' use to
other knowledge paradigms, such as therapeutic and psychiatric apparatuses, and indigenous knowledges and cultures. I am also interested in the multiple forms the loosening of legal control of psychedelics in other jurisdictions is taking, and how these forms relate to broader politics of drug controls. The work I have undertaken has received funding from British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and builds on a previous Wellcome Trust-funded project on 'pharmacosexuality' (https://pharmacosexuality.wordpress.com/) (2018-2020), which examined the meanings attached historically and contemporarily to 'drugged sex', and the role illicit drugs have played in shaping contemporary sexual cultures and sexual identities.

I also maintain longer term interests in substantive criminal law, and new criminal-legal developments and processes of criminalisation in the area of sexuality and sexual representations. I have published widely on e.g. 'revenge pornography', 'extreme pornography', and 'chemsex'. I am currently developing some work on the potential of omissions-based approaches to liability for sex-related offences.

Grants and awards

2021: The Sexual Politics of the Psychedelic Renaissance
British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant

2018: Pharmacosexuality: The Past, Present and Future of Sex on Drugs
Wellcome Trust Seed Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences

2022: Gender in online drug purchasing
SLSA Impact Grant

Publications and research outputs

Edited Journal

Book Section

Article

Conference or Workshop Item

Report

  • Conducting sexualities research: an outline of emergent issues and case studies from ten Wellcome-funded projects Kneale, Dylan; French, Robert; Spandler, Helen; Young, Ingrid; Purcell, Carrie; Boden, Zoë; Brown, Steven D.; Callwood, Dan; Carr, Sarah; Dymock, Alex; Eastham, Rachael; Gabb, Jacqui; Henley, Josie; Jones, Charlotte; McDermott, Elizabeth; Mkhwanazi, Nolwazi; Ravenhill, James; Reavey, Paula; Scott, Rachel; Smith, Clarissa; Smith, Matthew; Thomas, James and Tingay, Karen. 2019. Conducting sexualities research: an outline of emergent issues and case studies from ten Wellcome-funded projects. Discussion Paper. Wellcome Open Research.

Professional projects

I am a member of the Drug Science Medical Psychedelics Working Group.