Pornography panel speaker profile: Alex Dymock

By Diarmuid Hester

This Saturday, 8th of December One+One: Filmmakers Journal with the London Underground Film Festival presents “New Adventures in Pornography,” a screening and roundtable discussion on contemporary theories of the pornographic. This week we’re profiling our speakers – today it’s Alex Dymock’s turn.

A PhD candidate at the School of Law at University of Reading, Alex is working on a thesis entitled “Abject Intimacies,” which comprises an interdisciplinary study of the means by which sexual perversion under English criminal law is made abject, is restricted and pathologised. Her research attempts to expose the myriad ways in which the law upholds and reifies a culture of normativity and charts, in particular, the locus of the sexual criminal using a range of 19th and 20th century sexological and criminological texts. Her recent work considers criminal cases (e.g. R v. Peacock) and UK legislation (e.g. Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and immigration Act 2008 which criminalizes “extreme” pornography) through a prism of Foucaultian critique, Lacanian and Freudian psychoanalysis and critical legal theory. This combination of practical examples and nuanced, up-to-date analysis is what we love about Alex’s work: like the very best examples of queer theory and deconstruction, it pries open exciting new vistas onto contemporary debates about sexuality and the law. Alex is also a sometime blogger at Abject Intimacies and you can check out some of her work at academia.edu.

One+One: What is pornography?

Alex Dymock: Pornography is the vulgar display of something one desires but has not experienced, does not want to experience, or cannot experience.

One+One: The worst thing about porn is…

AD: That it is always a hyperreal camouflage for the realities of desire, its associated responsibilities and consequences.

One+One: The best thing about porn is…

AD: That it always a hyperreal camouflage for the realities of desire, its associated responsibilities and consequences.

One+One: Who’s your favourite porn star?

AD: Audrey Hollander

One+One: Who’s your favourite porn theorist?

AD: Drucilla Cornell, particularly her work on the ‘imaginary domain,’ Linda Williams’ ‘frenzy of the visible,’ Angela Carter and her Sadeian women.