Donald Trump, pictured here at home, not in the Playboy Mansion.
It is one of the long-established laws of the internet that if something, somewhere, exists then someone, somewhere, is making pornography about it. It’s officially codified as Rule 34 of the Internet, in fact; and no less respectable an outfit than the Washington Post a few years back dedicated a report to this issue, which affirmed: “Tetris blocks? Yep, absolutely. Leprechauns? The Web’s got it. Robots? Aliens? Goats? Trombones? Buck up and Google them.”
God help all of us, Rule 34 has been working its magic on recent Washington politics. I’m not talking about the way the real-life dating history of the sort-of-historian, Trump cheerleader and convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza — who is on record as having courted both Laura Ingraham and Anne Coulter at one time or another — resembles a discontinued experiment in alt-Right “slash” fanfiction. Nor the grisly real-life sexual behaviour of the beltway hanger-on Jason Miller. Nor, indeed, those indelible images of Rudy Giuliani adjusting his trousers on a motel bed in the new Borat movie.
No, I’m talking about the equally grim but at least victimless proliferation of Trump-era erotica available at knockdown prices in Amazon’s Kindle store. There’s really quite a lot of it, and some of it is very eccentric indeed. Of course, as much as you can put it down to Rule 34, it seems likely that a handful of PhDs are going to be spawned by this stuff. For my recent survey of the canon suggests that most of the authors are not aiming to arouse a sexual response in the reader so much as to make the reader gag — with laughter or revulsion.
That makes sense, anthropologically. After all, lewd sexual depictions have long been a primary recourse of political satire. Think of the filthy late-medieval flytings of Skelton, the restoration rumpty tumpty of the foul-mouthed Second Earl of Rochester, the earthy vulgarity of a Hogarth or a Gillray; or in our own age the early work of Gerald Scarfe or the Spitting Image material that was too rude to put on TV. The high-quality stuff survives — Rochester was a first-rate poet — but you can be pretty sure that in each age any number of talentless poetasters and loo-wall scribblers were likewise aiming their political commentary below the belt.
Take “Chuck Tingle” (I suspect this of being a pseudonym; apologies to Ma and Pa Tingle if I’m wrong). One of the most prolific pornographers on the Kindle Store, Mr Tingle makes up in productivity what he lacks in literary — and he certainly seems to have taken an interest in the day-to-day beltway news cycle, as well as being jolly keen on bottoms. One of the many titles available at the time of writing was Domald Tromp’s Ass Is Haunted By The Handsome Ghost Of His Incriminating Tax Returns. Or: Lindsey Ram’s Ass Is Haunted By The Physical Manifestation Of His Hypocritical Words About Not Filling A Vacant Supreme Court Seat During An Election Year Which He Specifically Ask To Haunt Him.
One of the things you’ll notice about Mr Tingle’s work is characteristic of much of this subgenre of erotica. Its authors are far more cautious about libel lawyers than they are about family values campaigners. So “Lindsey Ram” is in no way to be mistaken for the senior senator from South Carolina with a similar sounding name, and likewise any resemblance between “Domald Tromp” and Donald Trump is entirely a trick of the reader’s imagination. In Dirty Debate: When the Masks Come Off, by “Byron Buffoon” (again, apologies to Ma and Pa Buffoon), the elderly but Viagra-toting protagonist is a presidential candidate called “Hoe Bi-man”. Attending a masked Hallowe’en party at the White House, he finds himself snatching a moment of sordid passion with “President Hump”. “Will you shut up, man?” he exclaims at one point. “I can’t stand your voice but goddamn this ass feels amazing.”
We should at least consider the possibility that real sexual feeling is involved, of course. Could all this be a sign that the ferocity of the culture wars, like Beatrice and Benedick’s “merry war” of courtship in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, is the proxy for something else? After all, it’s a law not just of the internet but of the human libido that the more taboo something is the more arousing some people are going to find it. As Woody Allen (don’t @ me) said: “Is sex dirty? Only when it’s being done right.” Does it, perhaps, account for the flowering of fantasies in which political passions are channelled into baser enthusiasms? Is there a love-across-the-barricades, opposites-attract thing going on, in which milquetoast liberals secretly dream of being given a good seeing to by a hairy QAnon Shaman or a redneck in a Maga hat?
Honestly? I doubt it. Most of these stories show signs of having been written at some speed, and with drink taken. Donald Feels the Bern, by Cliff Fuxtable, has a bash at dramatising the psychosexual tensions between Left and Right. It opens with an “ageing Marxist” on a bar stool, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, fulminating against the Koch Brothers and wondering if the struggle to which he has devoted his life was worth it: “Just once, thought Bernie, I’d like to give the 1% a taste of their own medicine. Give it to ‘em nice and hard.” Happily, he gets the chance when a billionaire called Donald walks into the bar, and soon they’re in the toilets, reaching across the aisle. “Bernie had to admit that cavorting with a chivalrous billionaire was more arousing than he expected. Perhaps he could spend less time railing on the 1%,” it occurs to our hero, “and actually start railing the 1%.” The scenes that follow would give Lou Dobbs himself nightmares.
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SubscribeAmazing to think that Sam Leith actually earns a living from utter rubbish like this
I think the author needs therapy.
I struggle to find sites that will accept submissions from contributors who are not professional writers, like myself, who don’t have a body of work published already. It’s very difficult and Unherd is even more difficult to crack than most, so I’m trying to figure out how Unherd purports to have any standard for contributions after this illiterate mess. I’m just talking about basic writing concepts that make writing coherent.
Apart from the content, apart from whether one is a Trump hater or lover, I walk away from this not understanding one coherent thing about what the writer hoped to communicate, and find it even more ironic as I’m looking at his brief bio that he wrote a book on writing that would suggest his writing would be anything other than incoherent.
Unherd should have controversial and multiple perspectives but this piece adds no value to any reader. As a Trump hater I can’t bring myself to laugh. As a Trump lover I can’t quite pick out a real offense. If this is satire it’s supposed to be funny. This writing sucks like a freshman writing course required for poli-sci majors to get passed through.
What am I missing here Unherd editors? Pick funny or poignant or persuasive, but choose coherence.
Thanks, Ichi San. I had thought to try to peddle something to UnHerd, but now I won’t bother. Sam Leith actually can be a very good columnist, but it looks like we may be past peak-Sam.
Oh dear, I hope this isn’t the standard for future articles. Drivel.
A really dud article. Incidentally Mr D’Souza appears to have been an early example of the Democrat’s partisan weaponization of the legal system under Obama, that went on to claim Flynn and others. Also compare the BLM and ANTIFA riots, the lives lost and property damaged including federal buildings compared with the aftermath of Jan 6 ‘insurrection’ and the disparate coverage and reactions is another example. Being indicted in the US in a Dem jurisdiction is akin to a Soviet trial. Having said that, Mr Leith being ‘Arty’ is part of of the Spectators Trump hating lefty faction. As Matthew Parris is part of their anti-Brexit group. Another viewpoint. I read them to see the state of their thinking, and to see how they see, frankly, people like me. I think he needs to get out of his bubble and really see what’s happening in the US instead of engaging in supercillious Trump bashing, fashionable as that is. The TIME magazine article about how they accomplished the election ‘victory’ would be a good start. But the article was a pointless unfunny splurge. I did learn one thing though. Rule 34. First I’d heard of that
Word salad – when I came here hoping for steak.
The author is “I think, but can’t be sure ” trying to describe an amateur-hour sub-genre so incoherent and dumb as to be, well, indescribable. In that, he succeeds.
Hyperbole much?Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated: “Dinesh D’Souza attempted to illegally contribute over $10,000 to a Senate campaign, wilfully undermining the integrity of the campaign finance process. Like many others before him, of all political stripes, he has had to answer for this crime ““ here with a felony conviction.”
Incredible. “Literary editor”? Your “hidden passions” are showing, mister.
Perhaps the author threw a large number of random words into whatsapp and let the autocorrect take over? Hence the meandering and illogical content. But of course I must have missed the point and not seen the Emperor’s clothes?
I though it was me. But judging by the comments it clearly isn’t.
…. author of Write Beside The Point. How To Be Opaque, Erroneous and Uncovincing on the Page.
Yup, this was a comprehensive failure of writing and communication. Can’t win ’em all Sam. Learn from the mistake…
“convicted felon” for making rather small campaign contributions – you know perfectly well that Democrats make “illegal” political contributions without being sent to prison. You made it sound as if Dinesh D’Souza was some sort of sex offender, and you smeared Rudy Giuliani as well. You are despicable person Mr Leith.
The title and picture accompanying this article cause the reader to think that Donald Trump is the author or producer of a type of pornography, when in fact he is only a character in a genre of pornography, along with other politicians. The title and picture are click bait, and also serve to smear Mr. Trump by implying responsibility for this genre, when in fact he has no connection with it at all. If Mr. Leith wants any criticism of Mr. Trump to be taken seriously he should not use such a cheap and dishonest “literary” device.
It’s amazing, they just can’t leave it alone. They won, they’ve got their bloke in the White House , and all they can do is still mock and complain about his predecessor.
Are they afraid to look forward, so they have to look back? It would certainly make sense. Or is it just that they know that whatever his faults, Trump attracted attention, whereas most of the right on woke……whoops, dropped off for a minute there just thinking about them ..zzzzz
Why all the negativity? I assumed Sam was talking about stuff that really exists, and it turns out it does. At least, the one I checked on does. Thanks, Sam, for letting me know. I guess your point is if this stuff is real, why? What moron seeks it out? What moron produces it? There are also, clearly, many complainer moron – about it, and about the morons aforementioned. I do feel glad that they seem to be getting so little fun out of life.
What moron seeks it out? Well you did:-)
What the heck is this drivel? Was there a point to it? I detect some vague and highly ineffective sniping at the political right, but even that falls flat.