Notes on Peter Sotos' Language
More specifically, his usage of slurs — a contested topic in certain circles
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.