- Opinion
- 22 Feb 17
One of the more unlikely anti-Trump crusaders is US erotica guru, Dr Chuck Tingle, whose alt.right baiting website, Buttbart, has gained a cult following.
The resistance against Donald Trump’s presidency is a broad movement, with everyone from Oscar-nominated superstars to anarchists speaking out against the tiny-handed tyrant. However, one figure has taken to the fight like no other, using the unlikely medium of surreal erotica.
Dr. Chuck Tingle (Phd. in Holistic Massage) is niche erotica’s greatest mystery. He calls his particular brand of literature ‘Tinglers’. With titles like (take a deep breath) Domald Tromp [Sic} Pounded In The Butt By The Handsome Russian T-Rex Who Also Peed On His Butt And Then Blackmailed Him With The Videos Of His Butt Getting Peed On, it’s clear Tingle is taking-on Trump in unique fashion.
Chuck claims that he spent his early life in a place called Home of Truth, Utah, a once small religious commune and now ghost town. “Home of Truth, Utah, is a very lonesome place,” says Chuck via email. “But as a young buck I did not know that, because I was out in the wilderness getting hard and learning my body and understanding this world we live in!”
Reflecting on his upbringing, Tingle says he turned to writing to help him cope with his isolation. “I was a homeschooled boy, and I learned all kinds of things about dinosaurs and unicorns and other handsome creatures of the world,” he explains. “This is what my parents taught me, and when I wrote stories I put them under the floor because they made me feel weird.” Home of Truth was gradually abandoned by the families who lived there, but Tingle’s insisted on remaining. Tragically, all of the stories that helped Tingle cope with his isolation were lost in a fire, and the aspiring author was doomed to wander the earth once more as – he says – a “Lonesome man”.
FANTASTICAL PORN
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Eventually Tingle left Home of Truth and moved to Billings, where he and his son Jon currently reside. Jon recently revealed that Chuck is a high-functioning autisic, who also has schizophrenia. Chuck put me in contact with Jon, who explained that his father’s bizarre mannerisms are a coping mechanism.
“He used to have a very hard time relating and understanding social cues,” he says, “and still does to a large extent. But he kind of developed a character as a way of dealing with this. When you hear him speak, the best way to describe it would be someone who is uncomfortable, so they are using a puppet to communicate for them.”
Jon was instrumental in Chuck’s rise to cult stardom, helping him get into self-publishing.
“I heard about the Amazon publishing platform from a friend who works at the coffee shop that my dad and I go to,” he recalls. “He was telling me about how he had published some stuff himself, and the first thing I thought was that my dad has all these stories lying around. I’m always looking for projects we can do together and the whole thing seemed to make sense.”
Chuck’s bold debut, My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass, went viral, its mix of hardcore sex acts and surreal characters baffling and amusing readers in equal measure. Tingle is prolific and the dozens of tinglers that followed cemented him as an internet cult celebrity, a status he is pleased about.
“Everyone at the coffee shop knows me and they know that I am a proud dad,” Chuck says. “Sometimes Jon’s friends ask me about my books, and at first I was embarrassed, but now I like to tell them about all the twists and turns – they think it’s pretty cool. Then they think, wow, Chuck you’re really famous – do you think you’ll ever meet Toms Hank [sic] and tell him he’s handsome? And I say yes!”
Jon paints Chuck as a man overcoming the isolation of his autistic spectrum disorder through the medium of fantastical porn. However, there are some holes – so to speak – in the narrative. Chuck has a keen sense of satire and a firm grasp of current affairs. He has been an active critic of the new American president. But he is doing more than just mocking Trump in his writing. He uses his platform to do real good and to support the people and institutions that are most at risk in the unfolding nightmare of Trump’s presdidency.
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LOVE IS EVERYWHERE
For example, Tingle recently founded Buttbart.com, a less than subtle parody of Breitbart.com, the right-wing shithouse founded by Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Buttbart is more than just a comedy site, allowing readers to purchase alternative facts in exchange for a donation to planned parenthood. This sort of activism is characteristic of Tingle, who donated the proceeds of a recent tingler, Redacted in the Butt by Redacted Under the Tromp [sic] Administration, to the American Civil Liberties Union.
“These are very important initiatives, because they are helping all kinds of buckaroos,” says Chuck. “This is a good, simple way of proving love. Sometimes you think I’m just a buck on a log in the forest, but then you think well, maybe I can give a few dollars to a buck who’s not in a forest. So then you’ve done your part to help prove that love is real.”
In all likelihood, Chuck Tingle is as much a fictional character as the amorous dinosaurs in his writing. But the character has become an unlikely advocate for equality and social justice.
When I ask how he feels about the speculation surrounding his identity, Chuck is magnanimous.
“It’s okay because I understand that I have a strange way sometimes,” he replies. “This has always been my life. The most important thing is that buckaroos understand love is real. Even if Chuck is real or fake, that is not important to prove love, because love is everywhere. At the end of the day, I am a real man and a proud dad who lives in Billings.”
Despite the apparent lunacy of his writing, Tingle’s message – that love is real and can exist between anyone: black, white, or a scaly creature from the Jurassic era – is something we should all remember, in a time when hate has gained the upper hand.