Since 1993, those valiant crusaders over at Literary Review magazine have been doing god’s work and handing out the award for Bad Sex In Fiction. Like a smuttier, slightly more highbrow version of the Razzies – the anti-Oscars handed out for the worst films of the year – the Bad Sex In Fiction award aims to “honour” otherwise capable authors who seem to have no bloody idea how nooky works.
From bouts of cunnilingus compared to the flapping of flamingo tongues, to a hot and steamy frolicking set on a freezing cold beach, the panel have bestowed books written by singularly distinguished authors with the poisoned chalice of the prize. Everyone from trumped-up neo-Nazi Morrissey to celebrity chef Giles Coren to Tom Wolfe himself has been showered with the plaudit.
That said, like any awards body, although the folks at Literary Review often hit it out of the park, sometimes they hand out their prizes unfairly, heaping disdain onto authors who don’t entirely deserve it. To that end, here’s a list of some of the prize’s illustrious nominees, and our verdict on whether or not they deserved the unpleasant distinction of the prize.
THE TOBACCONIST by Robert Seethaler, nominated in 2016
The extract: “He closed his eyes and heard himself make a gurgling sound. And as his trousers slipped down his legs all the burdens of his life to date seemed to fall away from him; he tipped back his head and faced up into the darkness beneath the ceiling, and for one blessed moment he felt as if he could understand the things of this world in all their immeasurable beauty. How strange they are, he thought, life and all of these things. Then he felt Anezka slide down before him to the floor, felt her hands grab his naked buttocks and draw him to her. ‘Come, sonny boy!’ he heard her whisper, and with a smile he let go.”
Our verdict: Using the word ‘gurgling’ in any sex scene should be considered a goddamn war crime. I mean, I hate to break it to you, but if you’re ‘gurgling’ during sex, something is deeply wrong with you, and I’d advise you head to a doctor quick smart. Also, if someone said ‘Come, sonny boy!’ as I was about to, y’know, come, I think my sex organ would whither like a flower in a microwave.
THE SEVENTH FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE by Laurent Binet, nominated in 2017
The extract: “He puts his hands on Bianca’s shoulders and slips off her low-cut top. Suddenly inspired, he whispers into her ear, as if to himself: ‘I desire the landscape that is enveloped in this woman, a landscape I do not know but that I can feel, and until I have unfolded that landscape, I will not be happy …’ Bianca shivers with pleasure. Simon whispers to her with an authority that he has never felt before: ‘Let’s construct an assemblage.’
Our verdict: Okay, this one’s a little unfair. Sure, divorced from its context, this ‘sex scene’ reads like something torn from the diaries of a horny teenager who has only just discovered Nietzsche – but that’s exactly the point of The Seventh Function Of Language, a wormy, wordy book that fuses literary criticism, philosophy, and the espionage thriller into one delicious goopy mess. It’s cringeworthily amusing, but it’s meant to be. Leave Binet alone, Literary Review
THE DESTROYERS by Christopher Bollen, nominated in 2017
The extract: “On the stone porch, in the hot, mountain air, we grapple with our clothing, which, in the darkness, becomes as complicated as mountaineering gear. Her black shirt around her neck, mine unbuttoned, our shorts and underwear slid to our ankles, we seem to be moving at avalanche speed and also, unfortunately, with avalanche precision.”
Our verdict: I mean, 90 per cent of this is totally acceptable, but I have no fucking clue what’s going on in that final little break. What in god’s name does “avalanche precision” mean? Is that meant to be ironic, given avalanches are pretty much the least precise things in the entire world? And why “unfortunately”? Like a pirouette that ends in a broken ankle, this passage is.
WINKLER by Giles Coren, nominated in 2005
The extract: “And he came hard in her mouth and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he’d ever had in there, and he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything, and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.”
Our verdict: Pfft, did they mix up the bad sex in fiction and the amazing sex in fiction award back in 2005? ‘Cause this shit is golden.
DORIAN by Will Self, nominated in 2002
The extract: “In one fluid movement Herman rolled forward on to his knees, grasped Dorian by the shoulders, and kissed him. Such suction. They were like two flamingos, each attempting to filter the nutriment out of the other with great slurps of their muscular tongues. Adam’s apples bobbed in the crap gloaming.”
Our verdict: Given I consider Will Self one of the greatest writers currently living, maybe I’m a little biased in saying this, but there’s no way this extract is half as laughable as it is made out to be. I mean, everyone knows that flamingos, bottom-feeders that they are, have particularly flat and erotic tongues, right? … Right?!
