WARNING: If reading about blatant misogyny, undistilled sadism, fervent victimization, or the abuse of children offends you, DO NOT READ THIS. I have no need to thwart my inclinations in order to flatter some god; these instincts were given to me by Nature. ... Lam in her hands but a machine which she runs as she likes, and not one of my crimes does not serve her: the more she urges me to commit them, the more of them she needs.” "The Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sado With the long-waited release of two new tt tles in 1998, Peter Sotos has reemerged in print — and yet he’s not exactly at the eye of a hurricane of controversy. Sotos’ pen is. no mere poison dart; it’s nothing less than the verbal knife of a sadist, one who draws unfathomable pleasure from orchestrating the creative suffering of others. Whether his topic is true crime, pomography, the me- dla, or the schadenfreude narratives that dance between unspeakable fiction and corroborated fact, Sotos leaves no room for comfort. EYE takes a long, hard look at per haps the most dangerous, fearsome pariah in print. fetnanyinech EYE 19er LOS were merely a mean-spirit- ed dirty book author, no one would care. ‘After all, remain- dered bins of tworbit porn books lurk in allnight convenience stores throughout this twisting landscape. But Sotos is some- thing far more dan- serous, He'sa conduit of controversy largely as yet unrealized. His ‘writing provokes vis- ceral responses —not of the intellectually coded ilk, but more ofthe iron-fist gut- punch variety. As Jim Goad putsit in his introduction to Total Abuse, "Noone comes close to Sotos inhis ability torapea blank page. I've heard reports of read- ers vomiting ... or reduced to wetfaced Dlubbering .. orbolt- ing away sereaming from nightmares all in reaction to the ver- bal fist-fuck which his writing compris- What is Goad re- ferring to? Try this, from Special: "That 20. EYE teinsninarcn cute pointing gesture and hung lazy beg- ‘mouth, chea int and board nivel that points to a gap- ing ... ur, bloody coke bottle ripped scar and bite marks andaslippery wet set of mucous drenched fingers and spit and piss and. momma's umbilical bleed and shit and cxy-baby scteams and deep howls and con- fusion ane, hate and, bright white black punches, kicks and cum has absolutely nothing to do with what you offer either way. [held that per- sonality in my hand — your personality —inmy hand before walked in here and saw that small mo- tion walking behind me. Tugging at my sleeve. Being so im- polite and forceful and demanding and bad needy. So profes- sional.” put pe good en Pieersot wes ofthe intersection ofsex, brutality, and crime in the most im- ‘mediate sense those words could ever hope to imply. Hiss, the rapt fascination with the action and intent of crime, with- out the distillation of journalistic vagaries ‘or moralistic distance, He relishes the moment of vio- lence, the pleas for mercy, the whimpers ‘of agony and doom, and the intense sor- row of the inevitable victim's family. He does not apologize, does not sympathize, and really, does not fantasize; this isthe vicious beast of male sexuality gone primal and vicious, celebrat- ed in the prosaic fevers of its high priest A reaction of utter ‘outrage and disgust iseagy toimagine in someone wholly un- acquainted with the literary underbelly. Even amongst the gutterati, most ad- here tightly enough tosome form of ‘moral compass to evince total reval- sion. It hard to imagine a time when Sotos will become the toast of the underg- sound publishing. world. And therein lies the importance of Peter Sotos. Like de Sade, Ragnar Red- beard, Genet, and Ikeberg Stim (among others) before him, Peter Sotos isa line in the sand of subcul- tural acceptability Unlike those writers, though, Sotos is bru- tality itselfin print — his words are more ‘weapon than art. I's probably an under- statement to hold that Sotosis that thing that anti- pomography folk are soternified of. Although most points on the cultural moral compass are open season to every ‘ne from sitcom stars to performance artist, the victimiza- fn of the under. classes — especially Ghildren— stile yond taboo. Which is exactly the grist of Peter So- tos’ mill. A kiddie porn media sensation tos became a rini-media event in 1984, when copies of his sillnascent Zine Pure were seized in the United States, and England. He was arrested and later convicted of possess- ing child porogra- phy —one of the first tobe prosecuted for that offense. Chicago ‘TV stations had a field day, quoting So- toson the air and showing the seized cover of Pure No. 2; it displayed what ap- peared to bea very rainy image of a young vagina, Oda that a station would give airtime to such imagery when kiddie ‘porn was the charge eventually appended 40 Peter Sotos. Many first encoun tered Sotos courtesy of an interview pub- Tished in Adam Pas- frey’s seminal Apoca- lypse Culture, the vital chronicle of culture in dissolution. If there is sucha thing asa three-page summa- tion of Peter Sotos, this sit, pocked with incendiary comments and salacious bor mos Notlong after- ward, enter Jim Goad, the oft-reviled ‘mastermind behind