Chuck Tingle

Pounded In The Butt By Ordinal Rating Scales/10

by Admiral Fartmore

(Reviewed by Popular Demand)

Editor’s note: Chuck Tingle was gracious enough to review “The Berenstain Bears: Life With Papa” for us a few weeks back and we have greatly enjoyed collaborating with him otherwise. Please feel free to visit www.chucktingle.com if you are interested in purchasing any of his unique works. We wish him all the best with his handsome son Jon and hope Barbara’s ghost leaves him alone soon.

Chuck Tingle writes bizarre erotica. A whole lot of bizarre erotica. His topics range from sci-fi – “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” – to office space romance – “Slammed Up The Butt By My Hot Coffee Boss” – to Western – “Shared By The Chocolate Milk Cowboys.” And so, as you might imagine, we here at the Piece of Shit Book Club get a lot of requests to review Dr. Tingle’s work. A whole lot of requests.

Just a few of the works we’ve been asked to review.

But Dr. Tingle raises a difficult question for us – how do we review books that are deliberately absurd? And in particular, how do we understand this genre? Tingle is only one of many authors now publishing these sorts of shock-erotica books on amazon. We also have Anon Bligh and his “Double Teamed by the Double-Double,” Hunter Fox’s “Evil Warlock Haunts Me Butt,” and Ivory Gothic’s “Ravished by the Possessive Gothic Mansion,” and so on and so forth. Collectively, these authors are in a sort of 21st century arms race to discover the strangest thing you can have fuck you in the butt, and it’s a horrifying new way to imagine the missile gap.

I don’t for a second believe that anyone who writes a book titled “Banged In The Butt By My Own Butt,” and then follows up with a sequel called “Banged In The Butt By My Own Book: ‘Banged In The Butt By My Own Butt” is writing for any reason other than to try and get a laugh out of people. I think we need to clearly differentiate this kind of book from actual unconventional forms of erotica: this is a shock and guffaw marketing strategy, not an earnest attempt at writing something for the old spank (or buzz) bank. People see the title, laugh at it, send it to a friend, and maybe someone at some point buys it as a joke. That’s the life cycle of these books, and they survive in the ecosystem of anonymous shares/comments/likes/tweets/posts/drunk purchases that form the online interactions between idiots like you and me.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, mind you. Years ago I got drunk and bought a Dick Towel online, and it’s brought a lot of joy into my life. I’m willing to wager that many of Dr. Tingle’s books are purchased under the same circumstances, and I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people get joy out of knowing these kinds of books exist and from sharing them with friends. That’s totally fine, and maybe these kind of works have a certain value. Some people might even argue there’s some irreverent brilliance to them. Whatever you think, I’m simply trying to place this as a genre, because classic erotica this most definitely is not.

The Dick Towel. If only I’d noticed the god damn $20 shipping and handling fee.

All of Tingle’s works are short (around 1o to 20 pages), and so I read a couple to prepare for this review. I was most entertained by “Pounded In The Butt By My Reaction To This Book Title,” a story in which the main character realizes that he himself only exists within an erotica novel and has a sort of existential crisis. It was actually kind of funny. I also liked the fact that this title seems to be a cheeky nod towards why Chuck Tingle is popular: he’s making his dollar entirely off shock value, and anyone that falls for it is getting fucked in the ass. But I do find that sort of funny, so is Tingle actually funny? Does that kind of self-awareness add depth to his act? It is “genius?” Or is this just the literary equivalent of your perfectly well-educated buddy snapchatting you a picture of his nuts?

In addition to the absurd, Tingle incorporates a lot of pop culture into his works. Examples include “Banged In The Butt By The Color-Changing Dress,” “Hunter Dentist Pounded In The Butt By The Gay Unicorn,” “Pounded In The Ass By My Leaked Mashly Addison Data,” and “President Domald Loch Ness Tromp Pounds America’s Butt.” As such, his butt has become a sort of archive for our shared cultural history – an insane, jizz-filled Smithsonian for our generation’s excesses and self-indulgent trends.

You also cannot discuss Tingle’s books without recognizing the character he plays outside of them. He is very active on social media, having done two AMAs on our subreddit, numerous interviews, a guest review of a Berenstain Bears book for us, and tweeting non-stop about erotic, nonsensical Bing searches. Central themes of this character are his son Jon (who he loves and looks up to), the ghost of his wife Barbara (who haunts him), his neighbour Ted (who he hates), and his PhD (from Devry University). He reminds me a lot of a sort of impression of John C Reilly’s “Dr. Steve Brule” character – think of Mulan 2 where they didn’t have the budget to get Eddie Murphy back, so they just hired an Eddie Murphy impersonator instead. This lack of originality takes away from what are otherwise some pretty funny lines.

Dr. Tingle confusing “octopus” with “October.”

But while adopting an absurd public persona can help you sell books, it doesn’t necessarily mean your work has any merit in and of itself. And neither does a so-bad-it’s-good book cover. But Dr. Tingle knows all this. I mean, the guy has a PhD. From Devry. He’s smarter than you or me, and he’s probably got a few dozen more booksales, too. So who are we to judge?

And so this is why I’ve attempted to do a cursory review of the entire shock-erotica genre rather than any specific Tingle work, because for me it all blurs into the same basic joke: Something Crazy Thing Fucks Man In The Butt. And I find absolutely nothing funny about that. I mean, what kind of asshole would write that shit?

ADMIRAL FARTMORE