Dennis Cooper on Sex, Violence, and Porn [NSFW]

Why is Dennis Cooper obsessed with Russian sex sites?

Author Dennis Cooper chatted with me via phone last week from his home in Paris. Among other things, we talked about his new short story collection ‘Ugly Man’, sex, violence and his obsession with Russian porn.

– Master WH

What inspired this project?

I just didn’t have the concentration to do a novel. I was writing and they just ended up being short things — just because my attention span was really short. I had always wanted to work more overtly with comedy, because my work has always had humor in it, but the humor is more buried. So it’s a combination of that. Thinking like, “what would happen if I treated this material that seems to interest me so much in a more comedic way?”

Why are the stories so short?

I didn’t have the brain to write a novel. Even my novels are really short. I can’t write long. I get too bored.

Who is the Ugly Man?

The original version of that story had photographs with it. And it was based on images from Russian pornography sites — because I’m really fascinated by these depressing Russian porn sites — and they have a bunch of these inter-generational ones — not illegal intergenerational — just older guys, you know, and guys in their late teens and 20’s. One of the men the man in this particular set of photos had this horrible skin disease — he just looked hideous. Something was wrong with his skin and he was having sex with this boy. I got intrigued by this guy. He’s a typical character of mine with a physical manifestation of something that’s usually on the inside.

Do the characters names have meaning?

There’s not really a meaning — different names have different associations for me. Some names sound sporty some sound kind of nerdy — to me, at least, in my head — and that might be because I know people in my life who have those names. I like “Brad” because it doesn’t have any association at all, but it’s very American – you can’t figure out who brad is, but it’s not a hip name or a a fake-sounding kind of name. Some of the coincidences are just coincidences. The names have a certain tone or color that represents a particular kind of person. Sometimes I base the characters on real people or pictures of people — I do that a lot — or sometimes the names are the names of people that I’m thinking about.

How much of your work is influenced by French motifs?

I’m a total Francophile so it’s totally possible. I decided I wanted to be a serious writer when I was 15 and I wanted to write about sex and violence in kind of a certain way. I came up with this idea of this perfect couple where I could write and there wouldn’t be too much narrative — just this kind of set up and it would be possible to get into the emotional or erotic parts of sex and violence without having to have to much story. The idea of this passive boy who wants attention and is willing to do anything to get it. Or is willing to have his surface worshiped or destroyed by someone which to him means they are incredibly interested in him — It ended up being this mathematical equation that I decided was the right way to write about it.

Is that why your work is so violent?

When I was growing up there were all these serial killers all the time — in LA in the early 70s’ there were tons of them that were suddenly around. It fascinated me because the boys were my age. It could well be that I some how inadvertently took it from French literature — but I didn’t intend to.

Do you find your own stories arousing?

To a degree I have to find them erotic because I use their sexual energy a lot. My work is very influenced by pornography. I always have this idea that pornography has this tremendous energy that you could really use in literature. But at the same time, I have this kind of horror of objectification. I guess that’s why I’m so interested in writing about it, because I get really confused about it. On the one had the kind of sex I write about, I find it erotic. But at the same time, I feel enormously protective and angry that the guys are being treated that way. I have this total thing about guys objectifying people that are beautiful. It makes me really angry and I can’t stand it. I hate when older guys don’t treat younger guys with respect — when they just treat them like fuck-toys or teen idols or something.

That’s why the work gets so intense. I’m trying to negotiate those two things because on the one had I can relate to the perpetrators and at the same time emotionally I relate to the guys who are being fucked or used. I do find them erotic but I also find them very disturbing. I’m drawn to it, both because it’s erotic but also because it really disturbs me and scares me and I want to figure it out so I don’t feel scared by it too.

Why is no one writing about the Internet and modern sex culture?

I don’t think writers are willing to surrender their literature to it. They reference it like a topical kind of thing, but they’re so geared toward writing the Great American Novel. They write about the Internet and sex on the Internet the same way they write about The View or Britney Spears’ problems — it’s all the same. You have to surrender. It’s the new science fiction. I don’t know why people don’t write about it more. It’s fascinating.

Can you talk about the story ‘The Fifteen Worst Russian Gay Porn Websites’?

They’re all real. I wrote those as non-fiction. I wrote those as sort of reviews of Russian porn websites. You should check out (NSFW) spankingforest.com. Don’t give them any money though! Whatever you don’t become a member. Russian websites totally rip you off. I learned my lesson. Just look at the front page and the samples, don’t spend $38 dollars a month to join them.

Why are you obsessed with Russians?

I don’t know. My boyfriend is Russian. At the time I was writing a lot of those stories the Russian porn business and the Russian escort business was really a wild thing. Now Romania and Bulgaria are more dominant. But you just get the craziest kind of pornography.

If you’re really interested in sex as I am as a kind of way to write about or think about sex [Russians] have these extremely eccentric, wild porn sites. American gay porn sites like Corbin Fisher are pretty vanilla and normal, but if you go into the east they get wacky. If you look at a bunch of escort sites — because I’m interested in the power dynamic and the money exchange — and if you look at the escort advertisement sites from the East, and in Germany as well, in America when you see those ads its like “are they versatile for oral?” or “are they versatile for anal?” and all that — but over there every single one has like “fisting” or “dirty” like everybody is supposed to make a decision about that. And so many of them say Yes. They’ll do fisting. Or Yes. They’ll do dirty (which I guess involves shit). It’s like a normal thing to ask. It’s weird.

Still hungry? Talk to Dennis Cooper yourself and buy his new book at the party that homo-neurotic.com is hosting on May 27, 2009 @ 6PM @ Boiler Room in New York City. ’Ugly Man’ will be released by Harper Perennial on May 26 and is available for pre-order now from the Harper Collins website or from Amazon.

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