Bad sex in fiction – wins a prize?

As ardent writers of sex in fiction, we carefully note this Literary Review of Annual Bad Sex in Fiction awards.

It’s the worst lines in fiction under the criteria of ‘poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description’. Also missing, we would add, is the blending of two contradictory but necessary elements for all good writing: imagination and reality. These are lame, lazy, virgin-writing sex scenes.

“Glorious, he was made to do this. There was cracking all around and a blistering sunlike heat, and Gwennie was shuddering beneath him, and one-two-three, he burst within her.” [from Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff]

“Fuck young and beautiful – this is worth everything – and I come with fierce contractions that seem to go on and on endlessly.” [from Fear of Dying by Erica Jong]

” … she rides above him the way she’d imagined that one day she’d ride a boy, a man, a beast; she grasps his long hair with both her hands and rides him as if he were a horse…” [from Against Nature by Tomas Espedal]

There are worse prize-winning, bad lines in the article.

From Red: Read more >>