Hermitix The Sluts by Dennis Cooper (Book Review)
Dec 19, 2025
The podcast dives into Dennis Cooper's provocative novel, exploring its unexpected significance within transgressive literature. The unique format of forum-style escort reviews centers around a character named Brad, illustrating a stark reduction of identity to mere physicality. Discussions touch on the escalating violence and fetishization, linking it to historical contexts of online culture. The host praises Cooper's engaging style, which lures readers into complicity, while articulating the book's eerily prophetic nature as it navigates extreme behaviors in a hypernormal society.
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Meeting Brad Sets The Tone
- Hermitix recounts finding a young male escort named Brad and describes taking him home after drinking together.
- The host uses this personal retelling to introduce Dennis Cooper's The Sluts and set a grim, intimate tone for the review.
Forum Structure Flattens Humanity
- The Sluts is structured as forum-style escort reviews that revolve around a sex worker named Brad.
- This format flattens identity and creates an amoral echo chamber where users reduce people to physical attributes and transactions.
Removal Turns Transgression Into Entertainment
- Hermitix argues most transgressive literature creates a safe remove for readers, turning transgression into entertainment.
- He says The Sluts removes that distance by immersing readers directly into an amoral online world, making the transgression feel immediate and normalized.