POLLS deep: The Independent's 2018 Bad Sex in Fiction nominees

Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore

My ejaculation was violent, and repeated. Again and again, semen poured from me, overflowing her vagina, turning the sheets sticky. There was nothing I could do to make it stop. If it continued, I worried, I would be completely emptied out. Yuzu slept deeply through it all without making a sound, her breathing even. Her sex, though, had contracted around mine, and would not let go. As if it had an unshakeable will of its own and was determined to wring every last drop from my body.

James Frey, Katerina

I’m hard and deep inside her fucking her on the bathroom sink her tight little black dress still on her thong on the floor my pants at my knees our eyes locked, our hearts and souls and bodies locked.
Cum inside me.
Cum inside me.
Cum inside me.
Blinding breathless shaking overwhelming exploding white God I cum inside her my cock throbbing we’re both moaning eyes hearts souls bodies one.

Gerard Woodward, The Paper Lovers

He was aware that she was making a mewling sound as he put his lips to her tightened nipple and sucked. Her mouth was at his ear, her tongue travelling along its grooves, voice filling it. His mouth tugged at her, extended her, she snapped back, there was a taste of something on his tongue. In his mind he pictured her neck, her long neck, her swan’s neck, her Alice in Wonderland neck coiling like a serpent, like a serpent, coiling down on him. She had found a way through his clothing and her fingers had lightly touched his cock, then slowly began to take a firmer hold. He wanted to cry like a baby. He felt helpless, as though his body had come undone and she was fastening it. He felt as though he was bleeding somewhere. Then he felt powerful, gigantic. He would have kicked a door down.

Major Victor Cornwall and Major Arthur St John Trevelyan, Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp

"Empty my tanks,” I’d begged breathlessly, as once more she began drawing me deep inside her pleasure cave. Her vaginal ratchet moved in concertina-like waves, slowly chugging my organ as a boa constrictor swallows its prey. Soon I was locked in, balls deep, ready to be ground down by the enamelled pepper mill within her.

Julian Gough, Connect

He drops the bra to the floor, looks up, into her eyes, it’s too much. He kisses her chin, her mouth, and their tongues touch, oh, too much, he slips his lips free with a soft suck. Moves up to kiss her strong nose, on one side, then the other, it’s hard and soft at once. He moves back down, till he is level with her breasts.
‘They’re small,’ she says, surprisingly shy, apologetic.
‘They’re perfect,’ he says.
He kisses them. Teases a nipple with his lips. It’s so soft; and then, suddenly, hard.
Wow.

Luke Tredget, Kismet

She shuffles her head closer to his cock, close enough to smell her own residue, and then takes it in her mouth, with the vague idea of cleaning it. Geoff mirrors this gesture by burying his head between her legs, and gradually she can feel his cock pumping up with blood, one pulse at a time, until it is long and hard and filling her wide-open mouth. They stay in this position for a long time, Anna sucking and slurping with the same lazy persistence you’d use on a gobstopper or a stick of rock. Eventually she loses her sense of the context altogether – of what she is doing or who she is with or where they are – and becomes an empty vessel for what feels like disembodied consciousness.

William Wall, Grace's Day

He’s almost weightless. When he enters me it hurts and my pain belongs to the subterranean world, primitive as the clay. His body is slacker than I expected, a small paunch begins at his waist and settles in a downward parabola to his groin. His pubic hair is red. His erect penis is a surprise although I had imagined what they would feel like, read about them, seen them represented on toilet walls and magazines. I didn’t see it before he entered me, but afterwards it is small and sticky and amusing. I want to touch it but I don’t dare. I don’t know the etiquette. He is twenty or more years older than me. This is sex.

thank you for making this. I almost did it myself but I was too lazy to format it all properly. Anyway, the fourth one is the runaway "winner"

this is between murakami and gough (for worst) - tempted to give it to murakami as he's supposed to be good

Yes, the 4th is spectacularly bad but I almost feel like it doesn't qualify as it isn't entirely straight-faced.

his sex scenes have long been his achilles' dick xp

murakami strikes me as an acclaimed writer who's bad although of course I've not read him beyond extracts

the fourth one is the one that sounds least like the authors have ever had sex

ilx should do a sex scene writing contest. maybe it's just impossible to write a good literary (vs prurient/titillating) sex scene

no, gough's one is the author hasn't had sex and is in fact fifteen one

the gough one doesn't display quite the ignorance about how sex works + feels as the major major major major one.

aldo otm that book is a spoof & including it here is like calling out the sex scene in team America as over the top and silly

re: literary sex competition, my novel© unfortunately has about ten to choose from

4 is a joke. Must be.

It is, see above

the last one isn't *that* bad really if you excise the last three words

(xp) Yes, just noticed that after I posted.

Murakami is the worst.

in general?

Ha, I've never actually read anything by him.

maybe it's just impossible to write a good literary (vs prurient/titillating) sex scene

see: Joyce, James

I enjoyed Kafka on the Shore, whose only notable sex scene that I recall has an adult woman give an adolescent boy an educational and unreciprocated hj

I'm mostly concerned that the narrator in Murakami's excerpt above is having sex with a sleeping woman; we can chalk up the implausible volumes of ejaculate to magical realism

did not know James Frey was still writing. and his selection is v bad

Not positive James Frey's excerpt isn't actually from the lyrics to Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me"

These are all terrible, but Frey gets it for "white God."

The Murakami is ostensibly bad but I feel like there’s something a little unfair about this to scenes like his that may, in context, be going for something other than sexiness.

Re-reading The Portable Virgin, Anne Enright’s 1991 short story collection. It’s often overlooked how experimental her early work is. Much of it is also highly comic. As an antidote to the Bad Sex award, here’s some good writing about bad sex, from her story “Indifference”. pic.twitter.com/u3qvDMaNQc

— Sinéad Gleeson (@sineadgleeson) December 1, 2018

xp Yeah. I always lol at this but do have that problem with the exercise, cause “it’s impossible to write well about sex” is definitely wrong but also definitely what these people think. & if all writing about sex is inherently bad writing then it’s kinda meaningless to have a bad sex writing award

james frey the type of guy who has a dmb song playing in his head while he nails you on a sink

voted 4 before reading posts and now I'm mad I was tricked. Frey is definitely the real worst one

gough is the cringiest to me because of the breasts exchange

4 is pretty funny

nice guys having sex

I enjoyed Kafka on the Shore, whose only notable sex scene that I recall has an adult woman give an adolescent boy an educational and unreciprocated hj

― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Monday, December 3, 2018 5:49 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

iirc there are also not-so-subtle hints that the woman is his long-lost sister

subtle enough I missed them or don't remember them, woof.

tbh they might be subtle but all i really remember from that book now is that scene and the stuff with the cats

Give it a jazz soundtrack and cringey sex and "stuff with the cats" would work for pretty much most of his books.

V disappointed to learn that the 'swan's neck' quote had nothing whatever to do with wiping.

all i really remember from that book now is...

so, you're saying it was a typical best-selling novel

Feel like if you aren't writing straight-up erotica/porn, going for the purely physical description of biological phenomena all of your readers have experienced is a losing proposition.

'Hungrily, he flexed his jaw first open and then slowly closed around the taco shell, letting his teeth tenderly grip its fragility while he ran his tongue across its contoured, salty surface. The saliva began to well as anticipation of its meaty contents grew.'

There, see? I'll bet none of you ever wants to eat a taco ever again now.

The most cogent reason for including a scene that dwells on the physical feelings and actions of sex in your novel is that ordinary novel readers, far from being embarrassed by the grotesquerie of it, rather like a bit of titillation/soft porn tossed in to the mix. They aren't concerned about the poor literary quality or the loss of literary dignity that entails.

That’s fucking ridiculous tho. Sex is a major part of life, not inherently grotesque, and a scene that dwells on the physical feelings and actions of literally any other sensual activity, if well written, would pass without comment.

seriously, an infusion of smut doesn't need to look this gross and bad
these are terrible.
Wow.

V disappointed to learn that the 'swan's neck' quote had nothing whatever to do with wiping.

Sex is a major part of life, not inherently grotesque

Pissing is an equally major part of life and is not inherently grotesque. Same goes for blinking, sleeping, and digestion. But it requires the talent of a Rabelais to incorporate extended physical descriptions of these acts into a novel, and even then a tone of irreverence is advisable, whereas most literary sex scenes are seriously reverent which renders them faintly ridiculous.

You don’t see anything about sex that sets it apart from blinking pissing or digesting

Also most literary sex scenes are seriously reverent -> this is not true at all

xp Physically? Not much. The emotions are the thing you are likely thinking of and they are not captured by exuberant or tender descriptions of licking, grabbing, nuzzling, penetration, and so on.

There's always something vaguely Cronenbergian about the 'winners' of this annual celebration of literary saltpeter.

i'm surprised simon and schuster still publishes stuff from james frey. i am more surprised that the cover of this book says "from the author of a million little pieces, #1 new york times bestseller." i had assumed dude was out of the game.

did he get a tattoo tho

trying to decide the most appropriate band to release Vaginal Overflow

Hole duh

actually that part of the frey is not in the independent but it is in the guardian, so james frey, everybody:

One.

White.

God.

Cum.

Cum.

Cum.

I close my eyes let out my breath.

Cum.

(other entries are expanded but none with quite the same effect https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/30/bad-sex-award-2018-the-contenders-in-quotes)

I've never sucked a dick but this seems like a difficult move to pull off, like maybe you could angle the dong one way and get some window in your peripheral vision?

They stay in this position for a long time, Anna sucking and slurping with the same lazy persistence you’d use on a gobstopper or a stick of rock. Eventually she loses her sense of the context altogether – of what she is doing or who she is with or where they are – and becomes an empty vessel for what feels like disembodied consciousness. She looks at the window and wonders how the glass feels encased within its wooden frame, what the shaggy clouds feel like being blown across the sky, what the walls felt like being splattered and smeared with wet paint …

japanese man writes bukkake sex scene. what's the big deal about that?

maybe that Frey passage will be enough to bring Oprah back

japanese man writes bukkake sex scene. what's the big deal about that?

― dub pilates (rushomancy), Tuesday, December 4, 2018 3:45 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rmde

it's such a big deal, a japanese man writing a japanese man erotic fantasy in sterilized prose, i can't even believe what a big deal that is

an elusive truth i've learned from these excerpts is sex is intense and climactic

"shuffles her head closer to his cock, close enough to smell her own residue" is the worst but the rest of that tredget passage seems to accurately describe dissociation during sex? maybe not on purpose

Yeah, the Tredget was definitely the worst of these, I don't know what you people are thinking voting any other way.

no i'm saying tredget definitely isn't the worst here

Pictured: a head, shuffling toward a cock

https://mcfarlane.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/norris-spider-maniacs3-2000.jpg

I guess I think it's the worst because it's the one that reminds me the most of the shitty manuscripts I edit for a living now.

i think the word he was looking for is "swivel," which isn't much better xp

https://media.giphy.com/media/WS0iTbZiR7mcE/giphy.gif

honestly, i am as yet unpersuaded that there is such a thing as good sex in fiction.

The Tredget isn’t the worst. I don’t think it’s supposed to be erotic.

Shuffles is a bad verb to use, but I think the passage is supposed to represent bad sex, where you feel kind of weird and self-conscious, outside your own body. So the awkwardness is intentional.

It’s not a good representation of this, but it’s going for something other than what the other ones are.

The Murakami one seems like a dream sequence. I would need to see the context of it to evaluate if it’s good or bad. I do feel a strong aversion to that passage though.

Not the least reason being the whole 'Yuzu slept deeply through it all' thing.

uh no kidding..
that was the most shockingly gross part of that one and it's pretty ripe

Yeah it is a surreal rape scene, not really “sex writing”

honestly, i am as yet unpersuaded that there is such a thing as good sex in fiction.

― dub pilates (rushomancy), Tuesday, December 4, 2018 8:04 AM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the line of beauty

person B is laying on their back, on a bed. person A is lying on their stomach, between person B's legs. person A, propped up slightly on their elbows, shuffles forward with said elbows, resulting in their head being closer to the cock of person B.

Is that a novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet?

I've read a few reviews of the Frey book and it sounds hilarious

how is bad writing formed

A Million Little Penises

The Murakami one seems like a dream sequence. I would need to see the context of it to evaluate if it’s good or bad. I do feel a strong aversion to that passage though.

it's murakami, so it's definitely a dream, yuzu has mysteriously disappeared and the protagonist must jettison everything to find her no matter if she is his wife or some person he once glimpsed from across the street, and a cat will be present when he wakes up with sticky sheets

would make a good blurb

Needs some pasta

the murakami one IS a dream sequence. the protaganist has been seperated from his wife (who has left him for another man)for a month and is living in a different city to her. he awakes from the dream ashamed that he could dream of raping her and even more ashamed that now it has aroused in him such desire that if he could slip into her bedroom right that second he thinks he may be capable of enacting the dream. 7 months later he learns from a mutual friend that his (now ex) wife is 7 months pregnant and starts to believe he impregnated her via the dream. so the whole scene is not meant to be erotic, you can tell this because at no point does murakami mention the womans ears.

lmao

"Wow" versus "This is sex"

which is the worse unnecessary ejaculation appended to the end of a passage?

surely if Frey had written it, it'd have been

THIS.
IS.
SEX.

"inserted at the end of a passage" imo

'This is Sex' sounds like a song title from a late-90s trance comp.

Steve Aoki (ft. Noel Gallagher)

https://img.discogs.com/cMxhbZQj9sm7Rl_9FiNX8I8ewho=/fit-in/600x431/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-12664-1488406603-7669.jpeg.jpg

Oh sorry, I may have been thinking of the track 'This is Sex' by Psychick Warriors ov Gaia (ft. Duncan Sheik).

I kinda like the "This is sex" one. I bet it works in context.

I voted for Frey. That attempt at poetry while you know he wants a high five from his bro readers.

DON: well, yeah

you used "loosen my load" you have no room to talk here

Thought Murakami & Gough were the worst in specific wats but I laughed at that sad little “Wow” whereas I recoiled at “overflowing her vagina”, so Murakami it is!

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