Peter Sotos (born April 17, 1960) is an American author and musician, well known as a former member of the British noise music band Whitehouse. In his books, Sotos writes about sadistic sexual criminals and sexually violent pornography in great detail, particularly involving children. His books tend to be first-person narratives, taking on the point of view of the sexual predator in order to portray sadistic and pedophilic sexual impulses. His former publisher, Adam Parfey, has described one of his books as "transcripts of horrifying, embarrassing human degradation." He often writes about real-life child sexual abuse cases, including the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 8-year-old Melissa Ackerman and the kidnapping and sexual exploitation of 5-year-old Masha Allen. Sotos was arrested in 1985 on child pornography charges due to content that was published within an issue of his zine Pure.

Biography

Education

Sotos is a graduate of Holy Cross High School. He attended Northern Illinois University for one year and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for four years.

Legal issues

In 1984, while the day-care sex-abuse hysteria phenomenon was sweeping the nation and while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sotos began producing the controversial magazine Pure, notable as the first zine dedicated to serial killer lore. The original publications are now collectors' items. In addition to offering many details about the crimes of serial killers and pedophiles, the text in the magazine praises them, describing them using such terms as "genius," "glorious," "exemplary," and "illustrious" and stating that child abuse is a "sublime pleasure." The text is juxtaposed with pictures and newspaper clippings relevant to the crimes discussed. A short manifesto introducing the first issue says the magazine "satiates and encourages true lusts." A photocopy from a magazine of child pornography was used as the cover of issue #2 of Pure, which led to Sotos pleading guilty to possession of child pornography in 1985 and receiving a suspended sentence. A copy of the magazine was found by Scotland Yard in Edinburgh, in the home of a suspect in a series of child abductions, murders, and grave robberies, which led to Sotos' arrest.

Musical and artistic endeavors

From 1983 to 2003, Sotos was a member of the British power electronics trio Whitehouse, where he performed using an EDP WASP synthesizer. In 1992, Sotos released the solo album Buyer's Market, which consisted of sound collages of spoken word samples from parents, law enforcement officers, and victims of sex crimes, including child sexual abuse. The album was produced by Steve Albini. Sotos also released Proxy and Waitress in 2005. Peter Sotos makes video collages and notably presented Waitress I, II, and III at the Palais de Tokyo in April 2005. A selection of Sotos' paper archives was shown for the first time in 2017 at the New Galerie in Paris.

Personal life

Sotos cites radical feminist Andrea Dworkin and French writer Marquis de Sade as his main literary influences. Steve Albini, who produced the album Buyer's Market for Sotos, described Sotos as a friend and a former influence while speaking to MEL Magazine in 2021. He said, "A lot of his writing is extremely difficult to read. It's repellent. You're brought into the mind of a sadist, pretty convincingly. And I feel like that experience, reading that stuff, is shocking to your core in the way that the horrors of the reality of those things should be." On another occasion, he wrote: "Peter Sotos is a lovely fellow whom I trust implicitly, despite his writing evoking a truly primal disgust in me." Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu has mentioned Sotos as an influence.

Works

Discography

In popular culture

In the 2015 film Love (2015), director Gaspar Noé shows Lazy, one of Sotos' books, on the hero's bookshelves. The American writer is also thanked in the closing credits.