Chuck Tingle | |
|---|---|
 Tingle at the 2024 WonderCon | |
| Pen name | Dr. Chuck Tingle |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | |
| Years active | 2014–present |
| Website | |
| www | |
Chuck Tingle is a pseudonymous author, primarily of niche gay erotica.[1] His stories mainly take the form of monster erotica, featuring romantic and sexual encounters with dinosaurs, imaginary creatures, anthropomorphized inanimate objects, and even abstract concepts. He self-publishes his works through Amazon: primarily as ebooks, but also as paperbacks and audiobooks.[2][3][4]
In 2016, his short story Space Raptor Butt Invasion was a finalist for the Hugo Awards as the result of a coordinated campaign which he disavowed. In the following year's awards, he was a finalist for the Best Fan Writer award.
Personal life
editLittle has been confirmed about Tingle's identity, beyond the fact that "Chuck Tingle" is a pseudonym.[5] A photo presented as a portrait of Tingle was found on a stock photo web site.[6][7] When appearing in person, Tingle maintains his anonymity by wearing sunglasses over a pink sack on his head, which has "love is real" written on it in black marker.[8]
Tingle presents himself as a bisexual taekwondo grandmaster who was born in Home of Truth, Utah (a ghost town established in 1933 as a religious commune and abandoned in 1977[7]), acquired a PhD in holistic massage at DeVry University (which does not offer such a degree),[9] and now lives in Billings, Montana. His Facebook account and website state that he is autistic and has a son named Jon.[5]
In 2016, a person identifying himself as Jon stated in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session that he edits his father's work for publication and cares for him.[5] Jon made a number of claims that have remained unconfirmed or been denied by Tingle himself, including that Tingle is a savant and that the anthropomorphism found in many of Tingle's works reflects "identity issues that he has been working through his whole life".[5][9]
Tingle displays distinct verbal tics, such as consistently referring to Jon as "son name of Jon" and calling his fans "buckaroos" or "ladybucks".[9]
Career
editTingle began self-publishing erotic fiction through Amazon's ebook service in 2014, with the titles My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass, Pounded by President Bigfoot, and Taken by the Gay Unicorn Biker. His work includes erotic encounters with personifications of inanimate objects, such as I'm Gay for My Living Billionaire Jet Plane and Creamed in the Butt by My Handsome Living Corn. Other titles feature abstract concepts as sexual partners or involve metatextual references, such as Angry Man Pounded by the Fear of His Latent Gayness over a Dinosaur Transitioning into a Unicorn, Slammed in the Butt by My Hugo Award Nomination, and Pounded in the Butt by My Book "Pounded in the Butt by My Book 'Pounded in the Butt by My Book "Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt"'" (referring to a series of previous publications). Tingle often incorporates current news stories or public figures into his titles, using sound-alike or look-alike names, such as Domald Tromp's Ass is Haunted by the Handsome Ghost of His Incriminating Tax Returns and Billionaire Elons Mugg Takes the Handsome Planet Mars in his Butt.[10][5]
Tingle refers to his stories as "Tinglers". Although they typically feature apparently cisgender male couples, stories also feature bisexual, lesbian, and trans characters. He stresses the consensuality of the encounters, and the stories end happily with "an optimistic, philosophical moral about love and togetherness".[9]
Tingle says he uses Photoshop software to create his own book covers,[11] which usually feature a photo of a muscular, bare-chested man juxtaposed with an image of the entity whose sexual escapades are featured in the story.
Hugo Award nominations
editIn 2016, Tingle's Space Raptor Butt Invasion was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.[12] This stemmed from a voting campaign by the alt-right "Rabid Puppies," a faction of the Sad Puppies campaign that opposed diversity and "political correctness" in the Hugo Awards.[9][13][14][15] However, Tingle disavowed the campaign, saying via his Twitter account that it was the work of "devils"[9] and that Zoë Quinn would accept the award on his behalf if he were to win.[16][17] Space Raptor Butt Invasion did not win the award, and he subsequently published Pounded in the Butt by My Hugo Award Loss.[18] In 2017, he was a finalist for a second Hugo Award, this time for Best Fan Writer.[19] He again did not win, and later published Pounded in the Butt by My Second Hugo Award Nomination.[20]
Mainstream publications
editIn July 2022, Tor Books signed Tingle to a two-book deal under its Nightfire horror imprint. The first book, Camp Damascus, was published in July 2023.[21] Camp Damascus reached number 32 on the USA Today bestseller list on July 26, 2023. Camp Damascus explores themes of religious extremism, conversion camp, and neurodivergency. In a review for PRIDE, Derry Paver wrote, "This is the kind of horror literature that is both timeless and yet perfectly descriptive of the sad state of the world today for LGBTQ+ people."[22]
Bury Your Gays is slated for publication on July 9, 2024. Library Journal reviewed Bury Your Gays positively, writing:
Tingle’s (Camp Damascus) latest outing is another refreshingly original look at horror, this time mixed in with algorithmic art, commodification of identity, and coercive capitalism. His hallmark inventiveness with structure, trope, and genre come through clearly here and are balanced perfectly. Nods to fandoms that have experienced “buried gays” are sprinkled throughout the book, and love in all forms—platonic, romantic, and everything between—remains the way to beat evil. Terror comes as much from being forced into a stereotype as from being killed by a cinematic villain.[23]
Selected works
editNovels
edit- Camp Damascus (2023)[24]
Other projects
editIn 2016, Zoë Quinn announced that they and Tingle were developing an erotic adventure game with the working title Project Tingler.[25] The game was finally named "Kickstarted in the Butt: A Chuck Tingle Digital Adventure" and a Kickstarter campaign was started in October 2016 asking for $69,420 to fund the project. The game raised over $85,000 from 2,450 backers in a couple of weeks.[26] As of 2024, the game has not been released.[needs update]
During Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Tingle created the web site TrumpDebateFacts.com, which purported to fact-check various imaginary Trump claims, mostly attempts to hide Trump's supposed non-human origins (such as "I am not a poorly disguised mass of crabs wearing the skin of bloated human"). Tingle also released a number of satirical novellas featuring "Domald Tromp [sic]", including Slammed In The Butt By Domald Tromp's Attempt To Avoid Accusations Of Plagiarism By Removing All Facts Or Concrete Plans From His Republican National Convention Speech.[27]
In 2018, a podcast titled Pounded in the Butt By My Own Podcast, based on Tingle's works, debuted in association with the producers of Welcome to Night Vale, a horror-fantasy podcast.[28] Each episode is an audiobook version of one of Tingle's novellas, often read by an alum of the Night Vale podcast (including Cecil Baldwin and Mara Wilson). My Friend Chuck, a podcast co-hosted by Tingle and writer/comedian McKenzie Goodwin, aired from 2019 to 2020.
Tingle has been a strong advocate for transgender rights. In 2020, he began publishing satires of the Harry Potter series featuring "Trans Wizard Harriet Porber" in response to J. K. Rowling's stances against transgender rights. In 2022, he purchased the domain governorabbott.com and used it to protest Governor of Texas Greg Abbott's policies impacting transgender individuals.[29]
References
edit- ^ Jones, Ralph (January 5, 2015). "I Got Erotica Master Chuck Tingle to Workshop My Dinosaur Erotica". Jezebel. Gawker Media. Archived from the original on July 16, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Votta, Rae (January 29, 2015). "Everything you need to know about gay dinosaur erotica". The Daily Dot. Daily Dot Media. Archived from the original on July 27, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Harvey-Jenner, Catriona (March 2, 2015). "There is now Gay Erotica about #TheDress in the world". Cosmopolitan. Hearst Magazines UK. Archived from the original on August 13, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Kramer Bussel, Rachel (April 23, 2015). "In the wake of "50 Shades of Grey," what's even better than sex? Ridiculous sex". Salon. Salon Media Group. Archived from the original on July 1, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e Barnett, David (May 19, 2016). "Dinosaur porn or Rabid Puppy pastiche? The strange story of Chuck Tingle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on August 26, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
- ^ Mancuso, Vinnie (March 2, 2015). "Meet Dr. Chuck Tingle, the Author Behind Amazon's Most Absurd Gay Erotica". Observer.com. Observer Media. Archived from the original on July 14, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ a b "Pounded in the butt by the mystery of Chuck Tingle, Amazon's weird erotica king". The Daily Dot. April 25, 2016. Archived from the original on February 3, 2021. Retrieved January 30, 2021.
- ^ Shatto, Rachel (August 10, 2023). "Chuck Tingle On His Chilling & Powerful New Novel 'Camp Damascus'". Pride. Archived from the original on August 15, 2023. Retrieved August 15, 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Romano, Aja. "The secret behind internet erotica icon Chuck Tingle: his own life may be the best story he's ever written". Vox. Archived from the original on October 20, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
- ^ Votta, Rae (June 20, 2015). "Here's the guide to Amazon's best niche erotica you didn't know you needed". The Daily Dot. Daily Dot Media. Archived from the original on July 20, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Mancuso, Vinnie (February 3, 2015). "Meet Dr. Chuck Tingle, the Author Behind Amazon's Most Absurd Gay Erotica". Observer.com. Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
- ^ Barnett, David (April 26, 2016). "Hugo awards shortlist dominated by rightwing campaign". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Archived from the original on April 27, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Marcotte, Amanda (August 23, 2016). "The alt-right attacks sci-fi: How the Hugo Awards got hijacked by Trumpian-style culture warriors". Salon. Archived from the original on November 3, 2016. Retrieved November 1, 2016.
- ^ II, Vann R. Newkirk (September 2, 2016). "How N.K. Jemisin Won the Hugo Award". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 1, 2016.
- ^ Schaub, Michael (April 27, 2016). "How did 'Space Raptor Butt Invasion' by Chuck Tingle become a Hugo finalist?". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on July 11, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Hathaway, Jay (May 5, 2016). "Chuck Tingle counter-trolls the Gamergaters who nominated his erotica for a Hugo Award". The Daily Dot. Daily Dot Media. Archived from the original on July 13, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Feldman, Brian (May 6, 2016). "'Pounded in the Butt' Literary Genius Chuck Tingle Trolls Right-Wing Sci-Fi Nerds". Select All. New York Media. Archived from the original on November 13, 2018. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
- ^ Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia. "Chuck Tingle celebrates Hugo loss with new 'Pounded in the Butt' ebook". the Daily Dot. Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
- ^ Kaila, Hale-Stern (April 4, 2017). "Here Are the 2017 Hugo Award Finalists but Spoiler Alert Chuck Tingle Should Win Every Award". www.themarysue.com. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
- ^ Kehe, Jason (April 6, 2017). "The Hidden, Wildly NSFW Scandal of the Hugo Nominations". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on September 9, 2020. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
- ^ Dunn, Thom (July 29, 2022). "Chuck Tingle to go mainstream with new books published by Tor Nightfire". Boing Boing. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- ^ "'Camp Damascus' Is A Terrifying, Hopeful Tale Of Religious Extremism". www.pride.com. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- ^ Chuck, Tingle. "Bury Your Gays". Library Journal. Retrieved July 3, 2024.
- ^ Cramer |, Phoebe. "Chuck Tingle Goes Mainstream...ish". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on May 19, 2023. Retrieved May 19, 2023.
- ^ "Zoë Quinn on Life Since Gamergate and Her Erotic New Video Game – Waypoint". August 24, 2016. Archived from the original on November 5, 2016. Retrieved November 17, 2016.
- ^ Andriessen, CJ (September 3, 2017). "This trailer for the Chuck Tingle game is going to pound you in the butt". Destructoid (published September 3, 2017). Archived from the original on August 5, 2021. Retrieved June 21, 2022.
- ^ Romano, Aja (September 29, 2016). "Donald Trump is the ultimate cosmic horror, according to America's favorite erotica author". Vox. Archived from the original on June 4, 2017. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
- ^ Hathaway, Jay (March 14, 2018). "Chuck Tingle Interview: From Erotic Author to Podcast". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on May 2, 2018. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ "Erotica Author Chuck Tingle on His Epic Governor Greg Abbott Troll". The Advocate. March 3, 2022. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.