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About
Alex’s work spans sociology, affect theory, and critical drug studies, employing ethnographic methods to explore the intersections of sex, drugs, trauma, and memory. Their PhD thesis (titled ‘Fucking and Being Fucked: Towards a Sexual Ethics of Sex on Drugs’) developed a novel approach for considering the ethical dimensions of sex involving drugs, seeking to provide an alternative to conventional consent-based models. Alex’s current research focuses on community-led approaches to sexual violence prevention and drug harm reduction in London’s queer nightlife scene. Alex co-hosts a monthly radio programme (The People & Dancefloors Radio Show) on Hackney-based community station Netil Radio, which is part of a wider participatory action research project documenting ordinary people’s narratives of drug taking and dance culture. Prior to joining the LSE, Alex was a lecturer in criminology at Birkbeck, University of London, where they taught undergraduate and postgraduate modules in contemporary sociological and criminological theory, social research methods, drugs and society, and the regulation of sex & sexuality.
Research
Expertise:
Queer nightlife cultures; Community-led approaches to sexual violence prevention; Sex on drugs; Sexual trauma and memory
Publications:
Davies, E, L., Piatkowski, T., Frankovitch, A., Puljević, C., Barratt, M, J., Ferris, J, A., Winstock, A, R., (forthcoming, 2024). Exploring experiences of drink and needle spiking incidents among Global Drug Survey respondents from 22 countries. Journal of Drug Issues.
Lim, B., Christianson, A., Nicholls, E, J., Aldridge, A., Dymock, A., (2023). The Techno-Barbie Speaks Back: Experiments with Gendered Hormones. Paragraph. 46.1 (2023) pp. 30-45.
Connolly, D., Aldridge, A., Davies, E, Maier, l, J., Ferris, J., Gilchrist, G., Winstock, A. (2021). Comparing Transgender and Cisgender Experiences of Being Taken Advantage of Sexually While Under the Influence of Alcohol and/or Other Drugs, The Journal of Sex Research.
Aldridge, A., (2020). Intoxicating the ‘charmed circle’: Constructions of deviance and normativity by people who combine drugs and sex. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 20(5), pp.564-576.
Moyle, L., Dymock, A., Aldridge, A. and Mechen, B., (2020). Pharmacosex: Reimagining sex, drugs and enhancement. International Journal of Drug Policy, 86.
Lawn, W., Aldridge, A., Xia, R. and Winstock, A.R., (2019). ‘Substance-Linked Sex in Heterosexual, Homosexual, and Bisexual Men and Women: An Online, Cross-Sectional “Global Drug Survey” Report’. The
Journal of Sexual Medicine, 16(5), pp. 721-732.
Teaching
Engagement and impact
Conferences and talks:
Aldridge, A. (2022). Spiking and Uncertainty. NIGHTS conference. Zurich. November 2022
Aldridge A., and Møller, K. (2022) “Cockholders check your privilege”: configuring masculinity in digital sex spaces. AoIR. Dublin. November 2022.
Aldridge, A. and Christianson, A. (2021). Pandora’s Box: A Situational Analysis of Sex on Drugs. Queering STS. UCL. September 2021.
Aldridge, A. (2018). GDS 2018: Intoxication and sexual assault. Amsterdam. Club Health. May 2018.