Notes on Peter Sotos' Language
More specifically, his usage of slurs — a contested topic in certain circles
Disclaimer:
I've been thinking about this for quite some time and I've felt the need to put it out there in some capacity ever since I felt like I thought about/developed these ideas enough for my communication to be coherent. I wondered where to post this: it was either Twitter, Instagram or here.
I landed on here. I have the feeling that the small community I have grown around this Substack is comprehensive enough and not outrage-prone to the point I feel comfortable sharing something of this nature here.
I mention this, since, because I'm writing a text about Sotos' usage of slurs, I felt it would be inadequate to not use those same slurs in writing.
Had I posted this on other platforms, I would definitely be banned, or another moral outrage around my person would've burgeoned (something I'm not interested in happening right now).
I feel like the people that follow me on here are understanding enough of this specific use of language in this specific context (at least no one has complained when I have used these same slurs in previous texts).
. . .
This is my specific interpretation of Sotos' work revolving language, and thus, since context is needed, of Sotos' work in general. I understand if you disagree, and if even Sotos disagrees. Again, it's my personal interpretation, informed by a personal biography.
(I feel like I need to make this sub-disclaimer due to the formal nature of the text (“Note” texts tend to not have constant subjective opiniative references; they are most commonly stated as fact.))
. . .
Finally:
This isn't made to convince anyone that believed Sotos' usage of slurs was/is wrong that the slurs are okay. I'm not going to be the one to do that. This is more of a layout of what I see Sotos' overall thesis to be, and how his usage of a specific language: adds to it; is essential to it; can't be separated from it.
It also comes out of a slight frustration with the dialogue around Sotos' work, especially from his admirers/fans/obsessives:
What I notice is a tendency to appreciate how violent and brutal and “transgressive” (exhausting/ed) it is — but not why. I notice a lack of sensibility for the formal aspect of the writing, ignoring the fact that the form is as much the text as the text.
The truth is that, for a subsection of people, Sotos' writing is genuinely inspiring and a reference. What I notice in writings that openly take from Sotos is that most of them focus on (excuse me for my lack of conceptual depth here — but that's something for another post) what's being said (content) and not how it's being said (form) — again, this violent separation is inappropriate, but it is genuinely the only succinct way to communicate what I’m trying to say (given this is a disclaimer and simply an appendix to the text).
Sotos is a pornographer.
Sotos' definition of pornography is based on “prurience”.
Thus subjective.
Sotos, then, seems to less make objective statements on what is (and is not) pornography, but more so, point out and recognize the pornographic potential in “things” (for lack of a better word; people, situations, recordings, writings, news casts, race, poverty, desperation).
From what we can gather from reading his writings, Sotos' subjective view of pornography seems to have an anchor in objectification.
To Sotos, sex is objectification made material.
Thus, sex is pornography.
“Sex is proxy”, Sotos has said.
The idea of a sexual proxy demands the existence of a sexual object — proxy is always dependent on an object.
This can be evident when Sotos says (paraphrasing): when you're fucking a 5 dollar crack whore, you're fucking the 5 dollars, the crack, and the fact that it's a whore — not a woman.
Another example: when someone fucks their 5-year-old niece, they aren't fucking “a child” — they are fucking the attention she gives them; her teary eyes; the fact that she's related to them (which in itself serves as proxy for something too personal and subjective to pinpoint).
In these terms (Note #8)/cases: there's no person there.
There is an object which is used selfishly for one's own gain/satisfaction/pleasure (all terms too broad, personal and subjective to have definitions — just like pornography).
A black person isn't a person: they're a nigger.
A gay man isn't a man: they're a faggot.
A woman isn't a woman: she's a whore.
Directly addressing Sotos' usage of slurs (and non-slurs that have the impact of a slur (since the definition of “slur” is constantly, forever changing)): what word is a better objectifier than a slur?
If Sotos is making pornography (he is), and pornography is based on objectification (it is), then objectification is inherent/essencial/key/it.
When Sotos describes in Pure Filth an imaginary dialogue between a prostitute/porn star and the director (contextually assumed to be Jamie Gillis) of the scene she is about to perform with a convicted sex criminal and Sotos says “I didn't bring in just some nigger, you know?”, the word “nigger” is essential to it. It sets the linguistic base for what is about to happen: you're going to be objectified, filmed while doing so (thus cementing your objectification forever in space and time (while at the same time making it spaceless and timeless)) and then sold to everyone who wants to buy it. The woman is no woman — she is a whore. Reduced to nothing.
Black people aren't people: they're niggers.
Gay men aren't men: they're faggots.
Women aren't human: they're whores
By becoming/being a nigger, the black man becomes/is: a huge cock; a gangbanger; a danger to women on the street; an exotic thing; a drug dealer; a pimp.
By becoming/being a faggot, the gay man becomes/is: a stretched out hole; a mouth on the other side of the gloryhole; a pedophile; a weak object to be used and abused.
By becoming/being a whore, the woman becomes/is: a hole; a single mom; a source of back alley handjobs; a prostitute; a thing made to be raped.
Inside of pornography, that is what we're dealing with. That is what Sotos is dealing with.
To objectify is to be a pornographer. To be objectified is to be pornography.
Sotos' usage of slurs isn't simply a shock tool (like most people assume). It serves a theoretical, linguistic purpose — an essential one to Sotos' thesis.