

The annual Bad Sex Awards are being announced today. But don’t worry: the first prize can only go to fictional sex.

Every year, the Literary Review compiles a list of the worst sex ever put into writing. Last year’s winner went to Jonathan Littell’s “soft boiled egg” metaphor in his novel The Kindly Ones. This year’s contenders compare the deed to anything from wrestling a whale to a pencil of tenderness. (Sidenote: Calling sex “the deed” should probably be a contender unto itself.)

Here’s an excerpt of a phone sex scene from Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, which was nominated this year. (NSFW if your coworkers can read over your shoulder.)

One afternoon, as Connie described it, her excited clitoris grew to be eight inches long, a protruding pencil of tenderness with which she gently parted the lips of his penis and drove herself down to the base of its shaft. Another day, at her urging, Joey described to her the sleek warm neatness of her turds as they slid from her anus and fell into his open mouth, where, since these were only words, they tasted like excellent dark chocolate. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Debating literary sex is as hot among scholars, as regular sex is among us lay folk. The Independent published a fascinating analysis of whether sex should even be present on the page. Even the best writers, it asserts, seem to resort to cliché when it comes to doing it. Here’s author Arifa Akbar:

The feeling that sex isn’t fully represented in literature proves to be a false one if you expand just beyond the actual act, to all the things that sex encompasses. But once you get down to writing the act, it’s very hard to do it without sounding like bad erotica or embarrassing self-disclosure. I remember Adam Foulds saying: “You can almost see many male writers’ brain chemistry change as they write certain scenes and their ability to judge what is good writing get away from them.”

The piece goes on to talk about the evolution of sex in our social mind’s eye. Rhoda Koenig, a co-founder of the Bad Sex Awards, explains it:

Not that long ago, people would read quality fiction (as well as, of course, lots of rubbish) to discover what actually went on during sex, how people did it. Virgins wanted information, and experienced people wanted inspiration. If you were too young or poor to buy pornography or instruction books and had to go to the library, it was a lot less embarrassing checking out Lady Chatterley than a sex manual.

This can’t be true in today’s world, where porn sits on about 70 percent of our Internet real estate and standing in the grocery line means seeing about 70 percent of Jennifer Aniston’s breast. As Akbar puts it:

Modern literary battles are not fought by publishers over sex, as they were by Penguin in 1960. One wonders whether D.H. Lawrence would see sex, such a disposable currency today, as the same potent gift to literary fiction.

Yet, when asked about the best way to write about sex, the judges gave the following advice: the sex has to be absolutely relevant to the story and as explicit as possible.

[I]t has to be absolutely explicit—no metaphors, no hyperbole … Descriptions of throbbing orbs lends themselves to the awards, not [a sentence like] ‘he stuck his tongue in her arse.'”

But what’s your take, readers? Where should the line be drawn for writers? For that matter, why do we see such a difference between watching Angelina Jolie and Brad go at it on the screen and reading about fictional characters doing the same? Or is there a difference at all?

[MORE STORIES FROM OUR BLOG]