Bad sex writing 2014

Errr, the excerpts in question:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/poll/2014/nov/12/literary-review-bad-sex-award-shortlist-2014

2 and 5 are unbelievably bad

was quite charmed by the Mills & Boon-ness of #1 before I noticed who wrote it

After reading #6 I want to run through my office shouting "SIT AND SPIN"

murakami noooooo

are starving people really known for their passionate lovemaking?

am I the only one who feels really embarrassed for the writers when reading these excerpts? I keep thinking "ok, this is kind of a bad start but maybe the writing gets better and... oh god, you didn't just say that"

Wilbur Smith for his attempted erotic use of the word "pudenda."

#2 is wretched

also #8: "He lavished on her body indirect touches and bitter-sweet sensations flooded her brain." wtf

Think I voted for "he kissed the slight, rose-coloured trench that remained from her knicker elastic"

the cunningham is the most pompous- like, I get it what he's going for with the "unmade" phrase, but "harmedness"? really? Gurl pleaze

the Tan thing is just bad judment- lava in your mouth? I get that you're thinking about "hot things" but lava? LAVA?

the "hairless pudenda" part just sounds porn-y and therefore corny.

Sex is hard to write about and it is kinda mean to just cut to the sex bit because we've no sense of how / who / what / when / where / why these passages exist other than to be lol sex

'he steps into her, furious' reminded me of this other terrible sex scene:

http://www.maragos.org/avengers71.jpg

I mean, if your sex writing is worse than the median erotic fiction from usenet, you probably need to rethink your process

i think one of the first sex scenes i ever read was in a wilbur smith novel i bought at an airport in my early teens

heartening to know he can still knock one out at the ripe old age of 80

I don't feel like I can judge some of these out of context, because it seems like some are supposed to be funny or the weird nonsensical parts perhaps make sense in a science fiction or bizarro context that nobody would expect from the excerpts.
Of course some of them are very weak or too awkward.

Reading through the guardian comments too, people really hate "pudenda" but I don't get why. Doesn't bother me at all.

Perhaps that merits an examination of self

Sounds more clinical than porny to me.

wait what is the original meaning of bad here

bad sex? bad writing? bad (ie dirty) writing?

Bad writing.

"He steps into her" = hott toebanging in mainstream fiction, finally! Makes me think of Delillo's _White Noise_.
_Hormone Factory_'s crap about the guy releasing his beast is akin to the Mailer's last book about lil' Hitler.

ya "release the beast" is noxious... ill-fitting or overworked metaphors always seem like the worst offenders, although I must say the opposite extreme is not much better (as in #10: "He slides his dick into her. She sighs more loudly, but it's still a sigh, not a sex moan")

i feel as though a far more interesting/hilarious/embarrassing poll/discussion would be "which one is the least bad/most best"

This originates with auberon waugh & has that reactionary private eye smugness about it that always makes me want to reject it, also "bad sex in fiction award" like any of these ppl would know good sex in fiction if it stuck its finger up their ass

Excerpts are always good value tho

It's like the "razzies" being touted as an antidote to the pompous self-regard of oscars when it's really just the same thing, like wow the jonas bros can't act u say

"His hands found flesh; flesh, flesh."

considering the context, 'razzies' didn't turn out to mean what i thought it was going to in that sentence

#2 is by far the worst. It's not so much the "pudenda" that gets to me, it's just... actually, I don't think there's even a single acceptable clause in that piece. Her breasts are living creatures. They're white as mare's milk. They have ruby nipples (I mean, seriously, go away and look at a ruby, then consider what that would look like on horse milk boobs). The hairlessness (is it a child or are they just going with the idealisation of children's genitals?) "Sweet dew".

In terms of most acceptable, I would go with #3. It seems a short and mostly functional passage, and I like the image of a twitching fairy penguin. Also seeing as I M Losted isolated it for derision, "flesh flesh flesh" is not that far off what happens when you're having sex! There's a lot of flesh going on. I don't see how that's a notably awful way of phrasing it.

"flesh flesh flesh"

maybe they were going for some sort of onomatopoeia?

or should that be onamattressopoeia?

inevitable fkn clowns underneath the article giving it the "lol this guy put a slobbery dog in his sex scene, what an epic fail"

imagine being so basic that you couldn't conceive of writing about sex for any reason other than to make you horny

good sex writing is as rare as hen's teeth.

if you go in for describing the physical details, you run into the problem that the physical actions are so wholly mundane that the feelings they engender seem all wrong. yet, if you leave the feelings out, all you get is a clinical description or rubbing this or inserting that.

if you try to disguise the mundanity of the actions by cloaking them in metaphor, you get all the laughable clichés of romance novels. if you try to ignore the physicality entirely and just describe the feelings, the feelings are so highly colored and changeable you can easily end up with the writing equivalent of a first grader's crayon picture.

you can't win.

There are numerous third ways

he said, coquettishly beckoning Aimless, who was then little to know what hid 'sex'agenarian years would bring

Typo and all

ew

given imago's above-posted hint on his approach, I would agree that sex writing is best handled with humor. not only does good sex often intertwine with hilarity, but using humor in the description of it capitalizes on the element of the ridiculous in sex and renders it more benign.

ha! usually i find the best way is to avoid the sex scene entirely. whenever i must write one, it's usually either pornographically explicit or plain bizarre, circumventing most of the pitfalls you describe

i love the bad sex awards tho coz it demonstrates that any cunt can get published

usually i find the best way is to avoid the sex scene entirely

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/Corbis-AX933529.jpg?size=67&uid=0c1ab339-96bb-4199-99f3-a1eb40292945

the goal was wide open. all i had to do was put it inside

u will have busted a nult

now there's some slash fiction that really shouldn't happen

Curious to know if the people who select these are fans of sex scenes or erotica writing at all, or they just stick to mainstream novels.

Wonder what their favourite scenes would read like

Not all of these are flat out terrible, some are just sort of average. I can't help but think people just find something so inherently embarrassing about vivid descriptions of sex that there's a very high bar to not be "bad." That said, I think the most bathetic one is actually #7, due to the extreme proximity of the pseudo-profound "And when it hits her, it slams her hard and fast, as life once had" to the phrase "cups his balls."

Yeah, #7, that's my pick. The whole thing has an awful creative writing workshop stench to it.

#6 is hilarious

It's hard for me to believe that Haruki Murakami didn't mean for that to be funny/ridiculous

By all means, if ppl wanna start throwing in what they think is some good sex scene writing, have at it

Some of #2 might be forgiven since it's written from the perspective of someone in the 16th century BCE. But then there's "The sweet dew of feminine arousal glistened upon them."

WS Burroughs was great at this imo

Curious to know if the people who select these are fans of sex scenes or erotica writing at all, or they just stick to mainstream novels.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, November 13, 2014 1:02 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wonder what their favourite scenes would read like

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, November 13, 2014 1:04 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not sure, how about you? *rests chin on hands*

we shd have a sex scene competition tbh, like the poetry one but more arousing

oh yes, nothing i love more than a bottle of rose, a hot bath, and naked lunch as a guide to my evening's adventures.

lol yeah I didn't say I found them arousing

is that the goal of sex scenes in modern novels, to arouse the reader?

i'm permalinking that post imago

not necessarily. when i write sex scenes it's either to advance the narrative or segue between tones

oh good matt, you're in favour

I just think he was good at writing them and integrating them into his work, they were part and parcel with his overall themes/ideas, they didn't stand out as some stupid, separate detour intended to titillate the reader

xp

we shd have a sex scene competition tbh, like the poetry one but more arousing

― imago, Thursday, November 13, 2014 9:07 PM (8 minutes ago)

This would be hilarious and embarrassing and awesome.

*shudders*

oh come now, you'd write a darling shag

i love stupid, separate detours intended to titillate the reader, the weirder and more awkward the better.

basically i would support a prose version of RIP nsfws

before i do anything, do u have iltmi on sna matt. i wish to avoid the no way

"imma let you finish but imago had the greatest sex scene of iltmi! ILTMI!"

check out the sex face on this tolstoy

i'm not sure, how about you? *rests chin on hands*

― mattresslessness, Thursday, 13 November 2014

Most erotica I've read is terrible, but works on certain levels, so I kept reading it. Can't think of anything I'd wholly recommend and even if I did find something I thought was amazing, I doubt most of you would want to read it.

Apart from the hair whip and vagina vacuum I thought the Murakami one was pretty good. That's one of the ones I supposed might be fantasy or science fiction.

lusty-lusty rims had

xp I guess

before i do anything, do u have iltmi on sna matt. i wish to avoid the no way

― imago, Thursday, November 13, 2014 2:20 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i haven't no-wayd iltmi since sick mouthy updated the masturbation thread and would feel cheap and low-down if i went back to that well.

lol ok. also lol

Most erotica I've read is terrible, but works on certain levels

http://de-smitten.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/lower-level-blick.jpg

It's the same with visual art, some people can't draw very well and have really bad style but nonetheless are good at imagining and conveying certain situations. Real guilty pleasure stuff.

ILX 2014 Sex Writing Awards

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pudenda ftw