Lordotics

by Peter Sotos

Limited edition of 113.

From the
Dramatis 1. David Keenan in Terrorizer, 2. Lucy McKenzie in Artforum, 3. interview edit by Catherine Itzen for her book on child pornography, 4. Lynndie England interviewed by Stern.

1. Ironically, punters have more of a gripe with the following act (and the first US citizen ever to be charged for possession of child pornography) Peter Sotos, whose set turns out to be unspectacular. It consists of a documentary montage featuring victims’ accounts of the abuse they underwent by paedophiles, while he is allegedly down the pub -that’s art for you.

2. One would think that because he was the first person in the US to be charged with possession of child pornography, Sotos could confidently discount accusations of his having taken an ironic stance vis-a-vis his material. But the frequency with which his disdain for -or at least overstated distance from- what he perceives as art is referred to suggests that this is his real subject. Sotos’s phobic belief that his own sovereignty depends on his offensivesness and social disenfranchisement puts him squarely in the traditional transgressor’s double bind of needing the context he continually derides. This, whether inadvertent or intentional, augments the book and contributes to Sotos’s successful rendering of destructive compulsiveness as subject in Comfort and Critique.

[...] The faces of men photographed by police mugs relayed the exact same stingily overworked information. This is why the finished edits can’t be seen as a comment on the material or the social construct. I can’t do anything about the stupidity and lies that frame this shit but the collection was designed to be personally perfect - not highlight or deconstruct modernist theories of the media or vulture cultures. What was crass for others was irritating to me; I don’t want to talk to an audience of honesty sifting idiots who wall at lust and release. Mothers and fathers may appreciate this angle. I do not. I can’t. I’ve done too much work. The flat unlucky men I’ve located know these women’s experience differently. Nobody’s supposed to be ugly, lonely, jealous or vain. Replace complimentary definitions of sickness with countless degrees of defense. These poor boys got photographed in the clothes they got arrested in. List every possible thin concept between fair and judgmental. Sufficient and tolerable. They have pills for your instabilities and sad lapses. You can get more for your failure to be properly excited as well.

3. But I discovered that the longer I was away from the family, and the breaks between working myself into total exhaustion, I was beginning to feel sexual arousal on my own. The only way I could handle this was by masturbation. And I got into excessive masturbation, into self harming sexually, pushing things inside me to fulfill this sexual arousal that wasn’t being met either in or out of the family. This made me feel enormous guilt, and I was afraid people might catch me and find out. So I lived in total terror the entire time. But I was absolutely compelled to do it and it was the greatest addiction at that time for me to recover from.

4. Can you understand that people who look at this photo are offended? Well, they weren't there. And they don't know what went on and they don't know how we felt at the time, in that environment and what we were told to do. But do you understand the outrage? To be honest, even if I wasn't there, I might think,"Yeah, what the hell was going on here? What are they doing to him?" But then I'd realize where it was. And then I'd think, "Oh, well, that's like standard procedure there."

LORDOTICS is about sex offenders and the art of photography. Sotos revisiting his previous writings as snapshots, creating pornography from reviewing pornography. Glory hole culture and heterosexual sex joints, incest laws and recidivism theories and repetitive degeneration are all factors in a complex narrative with analogies to the art of film scripting.

hardback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Peter Sotos (born April 17, 1960) is a Chicago-born writer who has contributed an unprecedented examination of the peculiar motivations of sadistic sexual criminals. His works are often cited as conveying an uncanny understanding of myriad aspects of pornography. Most of his writings have focused on sexually violent pornography, particularly of that involving children. His writings are also considered by many to be social criticism often commenting on the hypocritical way media handles these issues.

In 1984, while attending The Art Institute of Chicago, Sotos began producing a self-published newsletter or "fanzine" named Pure, notable as the first zine dedicated to serial killer lore. Much of the text and pictures in Pure were photocopied images from major newspapers and other print media. Sotos also used a photocopy from a magazine of child pornography as the cover of issue#2 of Pure. In 1986 this cover led to his arrest and charges of obscenity and possession of child pornography. The charges of obscenity were dropped, but Sotos eventually pled guilty to the possession charge and received a suspended sentence. Sotos was the first person in the United States ever to be charged for owning child pornography.

Sotos' writings explore sadistic and pedophilic sexual impulses in their many, often hidden, guises. Often using first person narratives, his prose takes on the point of view of the sexual predator. Despite his early legal troubles, and the seemingly fatal stigma of falsely being labeled a pedophile, Sotos continues to garner support for his ideas and literary output.

He was until 2003 a seminal member of the industrial noise band Whitehouse.

Reviews

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Sotos, Lordotics (Creation, 2008)

A note to those reading this on any site where I won't have to censor it: the following review contains quotes from the book that contain adult and “politically incorrect” language, as well as graphic depictions of sexual situations. If such things offend you, then make the obvious choice and don't read the review. If you do so and find yourself offended, remember that you have been warned, and you have only yourself to blame.

Sotos' ninth book has seemingly escaped the controversy that surrounded his last, Show Adult , but it's most likely only a matter of time; the second a non-limited release of this is announced, expect the rats to come crawling out of the woodwork, as they usually do. And, as usual, none of them will have actually read the book, preferring to listen to others, who most likely will also have not read the book, but who are more than willing to condemn Peter Sotos on the strength of his earlier works. It's a tough call, really; while Lordotics definitely showcases a kinder, gentler Peter Sotos, one notes that the words “kinder” and “gentler” are relative in the extreme; Sotos is still obsessed with the same topics he's always been obsessed with, but Lordotics sees the creeping in of a world-weariness. Not a cynicism; Sotos has ever been the cynic. It's almost as if he's as tired of the cynicism as he has been of the topics over which he obsesses for years, but because they are obsessions, he still can't stop talking about them.

There's also what seems to be more contempt for some of Sotos' favorite subjects here. The top third of each page in Lordotics (which is, as has been usual recently, one hundred ninety-one pages) has a picture of a convicted “sexual offender” taken from one of the now-endless Internet sites that report such things. (As always, it should be noted that the definition of “sexual offender” is very lax, and on those sites, people who do things that by rights should have been legal for hundreds of years in this country are thrown in indiscriminately with, say, child molesters, because some people are too stupid to know the difference between consent and coercion.) True to Sotos' obsession, though, he filtered:

“Only offenders who were engaged in the sexual abuse of children. There are a few exceptions; mainly when it comes to indecent exposure. But because these men are meant to be placed back into the gloryhole and faggot situations that I insist on, I thought it legitimate to include those that tug at themselves in public. Some might argue that it would have been more fitting to put rapists in the group. There may be some. But I'm more interested in men who memorize.” (13)

As I said, however, “kinder” and “gentler” are relative terms. Peter Sotos examines parts of society that most Americans probably don't even know exist, and most of those who do are only interested in stamping those parts of society out of existence. Sotos reports from them in a matter-of-fact tone. While he passes judgment, always negative, on everyone involved in these subcultures (yes, including himself), he never passes judgment on the subcultures themselves. This, of course, is invariably enough to get someone's gander—usually that same puckered-looking soul who's out protesting in front of the places from which Sotos reports. Needless to say, if you're not condemning it, in the eyes of people like this, you're “glorifying” it, somehow. I doubt anyone without any experience in bookstore culture would consider any of Sotos' dozens, if not hundreds, of descriptions of bookstore culture over the course of nine books to glorify them in any manner.

“I see mental illness in here. I come here to watch grown men twitch and cry. I see more men physically exhaust themselves. I count entitlement. Drugs get to them, the alcohol and brutal rejection. They think of their families, I'm sure. Their mothers they've watched expire and miss so deeply and self-consciously. The faggot lovers with AIDS they don't get the same degree of sympathy for when condoms are stroked on just before the businessmen are ready to pop. So many of these dropping eye fat fucks are loaded on antipsychotics that working out which is beneficial or deleterious is something you have to wait for years to figure out. Tally how many of these scumbags I refer to as animals. Not quite the same way the ones who think they're reverting do, though. Nice slacks, a pressed dress blue shirt and while he's getting sucked, he unbuttons to let his belly hang. He rubs his hands around his naked thighs when his belt and pants drop around his ankles and strokes around his ass up and all over his protruding gut. You reach up to pinch his nipples and run through his chest hair when he'd prefer to do it himself. He is owed this. This is what you do. The last part of his disgust was only maybe at the door but chances are better that he knows perfectly well that you and other pigs like you have created this place for him.” (89-90)

I submit that if you consider that glorification of any sort, you should re-examine your definition of the term.

I have said it in reviewing all the rest of Peter Sotos' books (as to the long-standing debate over whether these events are true or not, Sotos himself has now put that to rest in a Hoover Hog interview on October 27, 2008, in the plainest terms: “I wouldn't create fiction.”), and I will say it again: whether or not you like Peter Sotos' work, you have to appreciate that Sotos is travelling waters previously uncharted in social criticism. (It should also be noted that Sotos does not consider himself a cultural critic, and in the strict sense of the term, he's right; he's a reporter, though as should be obvious from the passages above, were this a newspaper it'd be on the editorial page.) Sotos is an important writer from that standpoint, if (depending on your point of view) for no other. Adam Parfrey once said of the music of NON that the masses were destined to hate it, but for the few who instinctively grasped what Rice was on about, NON's music is “pure balm for the soul”. That same can be said of Peter Sotos' books. Obviously, the vast majority of readers will be uninterested in, if not repulsed by, Sotos' obsessions: bookstore and gay bar culture, child molesters and kiddie porn, serial killers. If you are one of the people who would be, then pass Sotos by and don't feel that you're missing anything. If, however, you share in one or more of these fascinations, you may well find yourself a new favorite author in Peter Sotos. I do suggest starting from the beginning ( Total Abuse: Collected Writings 1984-1995 ), for seeing how Sotos' writing has changed over the past quarter-century is as illuminating as the books themselves, but given how hard it is to get one's hands on older Sotos books, any starting point is worthwhile. As I write this (November 2008), Lordotics is currently only available in a sold-out limited edition of 113, but Creation have always put out a non-limited edition within a reasonable period of time after the limited release comes out. When it hits the streets, go for it. *** ½