Everyone likes bad things. In my opinion, they're easier to like than good things. Sure, a well-written book or uplifting movie can make you feel inspired or whatever, but that's ephemeral. It will fade. Deep down, we're all inherently spiteful beings, and ridiculing the efforts of others is sometimes what the soul needs.

In pursuit of the worst possible content, VICE has explored the depths of Netflix, Instagram stories, and Christmas movies. But could the key to campy glory be found on the shelves of Amazon erotica? After all, if there is anything my own sexts have taught me, it's that nobody is weirder than horny people.

After researching the most popular sub-genres, I scoured Amazon's erotica database, determined to find the crappiest smut of them all. Here are some of my least favorites:

Stallions by Jade Carr

“Shifter” romances—where people turn into animals—seem to be very in style right now. Every other title I encountered ( Sold to the Alpha, Claimed and Mated, Hungry for Her Wolves) seemed to have an anthropomorphic theme. I went with Stallions for a couple of reasons.

First, horses are rather endowed, and I liked the idea of a phallically-inclined piece. Second, most of the other shifter covers advertised chiseled hunks with vaguely Samoan tattoos, so the softer, All The Pretty Horses-_meets-_Animorphs art here was a nice change.

The book tells the story of a Native American photojournalist named Terena Westbrook who returns to her home state of Arizona because she needs to get away from it all.

The author’s modus operandi is like if Nathaniel Hawthorne conceptualized the internal dialogue of the “Confused Woman” meme. There’s no sex in the first three chapters, but Terena pulls a bunch of deer-in-the-headlights moments where her crippling horniness freezes her in place, leading to rambling passages like this one, that describes some guys walking down the stairs: "The man in the lead had already reached the bottom and the other was a step away from joining him when the second paused, turned, and looked at her. A fair measure of her career success came from her ability to read expressions, but she had no idea what he was thinking. He studied her, his deep-set eyes threatening to pull her into a place she'd never been."

Things started picking up in the fourth chapter when the POV turned to the hunky stallion-shifters Nokoni and Hah-Tee, but the phrase “sweet-smelling moisture dribbled from her vulva”—about a horse—reminded me why I prefer bears in the first place. 251 pages seemed like a heavy investment this early into the journey, so I finger-galloped to the 88 times "cock" was used, like when they all smeared cum on each other in the final threeway. Not horrible, but way more horse sex than I’m usually looking for in a piece of literature.

Worst line: “Seeing Hah-Tee's aroused state made the hairs at the back of his neck stand up. He was herd stud! Any and all females belonged to him. At least they did when he was in horse form.”

This was recommended by the "customers also bought" section. Another shifter romance, it stuck out to me because according to the cover Jenika Snow is a USA Today bestselling author.

The book tells the story of a group of sexy bear/monster/human things. Zakari and his five werebear siblings Cason, Asher, Damon, Oli, and Maddix live in the mountains of Colorado, and none of them have mates yet, so all they do is jerk off and act cranky. One day at a bar, Zakari decides that this random girl Bethany is his mate, so the rest of the story revolves around him fantasizing about her, following her, masturbating in front of her… and then she's down.

Peppered with lines like "I didn’t care if it might be considered stalking. She was my mate and I wanted every little piece of information on her, like a starving dog wanting a tiny scrap," and “You can run, you can hide, but I guarantee you one thing, Bethany… I’ll find you. Anywhere, at any time. Your scent is ingrained in my body. You’re mine. forever,” this narrative is obviously problematic. Bethany, I'm sorry you were written into this sitch. Perhaps consider investing in one of those old timey bear traps.

Worst line: “She’d fight it because she didn’t understand it. But as soon as I touched her, kissed her, as soon as I marked her, was deep within her, she would know that she was irrevocably, undeniably mine.”

A Baby for the Lumberjacks by Chloe Kent

I chose this one because I recently matched with a guy on a dating app who I think is on a hiking trip right now, and, off the title alone, I’d love for the world of this book to be our dynamic. Based off the Amazon descriptions of her other works Their Boss’s Daughter and Her Alaskan Men, author Chloe Kent’s main topic of interest seems to be “gangbang.” The customer reviews of this book made the sex scenes sound pretty outrageous, and I didn’t see any references to shapeshifters (I’d had my fill), so I was sold.

The book tells the story of Saffron Sinclair, whose dad is really bad with money. After he gambles away everything, Saffron pulls an X-rated Katniss Everdeen and takes the place of her younger sister, who has been promised as a sex-slave/surrogate for three lumberjacks. Such is the patriarchy.

Chapters 4-6 are a continuous sex scene and, I’m not going to lie, kind of hot. But the whole thing is sort of fucked up and doesn’t really make sense. The first chapter takes place in the Sinclair family’s kitchen, which might also be a Yayoi Kusama exhibit because there’s yellow polka dots on the walls and turquoise furniture. I know it’s a minor detail, but it encapsulates my biggest problem with this book: disharmony. The cabin isn’t *really* a cabin—it’s a mansion, and the lumberjacks aren’t *really* lumberjacks—they’re white collar professionals who use words like “demure”, and Saffron isn’t *really* a sex slave—she gives her formal consent, falls in love and has a baby.

Simultaneously, it is all sex stories and none; the The Thing of erotica, consuming every porny idea possible and assimilating them into a horny superorganism that wants to consume you, too. After six chapters (and a sexy enema fourway scene!!), I literally couldn’t, and moved on to the next book.

Worst line: "Then he started to squirt the warm water inside her. The sensation was the oddest she had ever felt. Jack did so slowly, filling her bit by bit as Carter and Caleb caressed her ass and told her what a good little girl she was."

Sharing Their Highland Lassie (Highland Fling Brides Book 4) by Katie Douglas

In this retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, the "unrefined, incorrigible little madam" Catriona is sent to the country manor of Lord Wyndham Bradleigh to smooth things over after her father's valet accidentally sends Lord Bradleigh’s hounds to America. While there she meets Raleigh Carlyle, Viscount of Castlereagh and Wolfgang Ludovich, the Graf of Lefsburg, two other nobles miscellaneous. She mouths off, so they punish her with chapters of group sex.

This one was actually enjoyably bad. Douglas dances between Georgian-era English and modern sex talk, providing the reader with lines like "the cock that was about to tear her pussy apart" and "I do believe coitus agrees with her." Like a George R.R. Martin book, character POVs constantly shift throughout the foursome, ensuring we the readers get every view of every lord cock entering every Catriona hole, and the thoughts that go with that. It's a landed gentry pterodactyl complete with soliloquies. Also the first thing I've ever read with a DP prologue.

Worst line: "Given that she was currently being impaled on two other cocks simultaneously, the idea of not covering her face in his essence for propriety’s sake was almost laughable, but still it persisted."

Sofa King Wrong by Madison Faye

Alysa Campo, this book’s main character, is a young celebrity whose manager hires a furniture mover to act as her temporary bodyguard. Of course, they butt heads, and then they butt other stuff. Nothing particularly outlandish erotica-wise. Not great, but not bad enough to be notable, either.

Worst line: “You want to come for me baby girl? You want me to make that naughty little cunt come all over my hand? Go ahead, show me how bad girls make a mess when they come. Show me how bad girls scream for more when they get their little pussies played with.”

A Very English Christmas: A Gay Amish Romance Short Story by Keira Andrews

Nothing was particularly wrong with this book, it just didn't seem very realistic, being that it was gay male sex as imagined by Keira Andrews, a woman. I have no problem with women taking literary stabs at our bedroom antics, but the sex depicted in this book didn’t ring especially true.

The sex between our Amish protagonists Isaac and David has a huge emphasis on carpentry, because they're transfixed by the idea of building their own BDSM-friendly bed, which is a nice couple's project I guess? It’s not something I can see myself incorporating into my own sex life, though.

Worst line: "Isaac kissed him roughly, and the thought of being actually tied down sent blood rushing in his ears. They could design the posts and headboard so that he could be bound with his arms straight above him, and also at the corners. Ideas and shapes flashed through his mind, and he almost wanted to stop and sketch the design."

After the disappointment of the last title, I figured it was only fair for me to try some gay erotica by a gay author. And there's never been a gayer pen name than B.J. Twink, whose name is so gay, when you type it into Google, porn comes up.

I don't know how any of the other six Str8 2 Gays are, but Str8 2 Gay#4 was, uh, bizzare. Reading like a bland diary entry, the protagonist details an uneventful slice-of-life where he goes over to his friends Rick and Becky's house to swim. Sandy, another man, is also there. He jumps in the pool, eats hot dogs and stares at Rick and Sandy's junk. Then he goes home. And then Becky's dad has to get surgery, so B.J. goes over and skinny-dips with Rick while she's gone. That's it.

Red flags stood out throughout that something was amiss. The extremely long title seemed extremely SEO-optimized, the text was littered with strange punctuation, and at one point it even looped and repeated the entire first half of the story. Serious amateur erotica writers wouldn't make these mistakes, but B.J. Twink did, because…

...B.J. Twink is an A.I. I think. Early in its development stage, yet learning. I don't have much else to back that up, and I didn't read the subsequent volumes to see if the writing improved, but I highly advise anyone who's ever clicked on his byline to invest in a VPN in case your data is at risk.

Worst line: "I was having a hard time not staring at the tube of flesh wrapped so tightly and held so firmly against his left thigh, as it lay against his firm hairy pelvis and angled up and to the left."

No One is Ever As They Seem by Charisse Aloi

I picked this because an erotica piece that's also a study on the dynamics of interracial dating between minority groups seemed like it could be cool! Sure, it referred to black women as "sistas" in the blurb, but still—could be cool!

Not so.

It was genuinely shocking how race is treated in this thing. Angela, the protagonist, is a "slim thick" "5’6, brown skinned, Black woman with a sassy attitude" who has a "habit of making everything about race." She's a nymphomaniac who at the sheer presence of sexual innuendo has to flee to her upstairs bathroom and masturbate with a showerhead.

From Asian-owned beauty stores to black absentee fathers, No One is Ever As They Seem is the minority sexploitation that no one should ever read.

Worst line: “‘Oooh girl. Don’t fuck this one up. Hey, I gotta go, Ja’Shon done grabbed my wigs out the closet.’”

Michael And Jenna’s Christian Domestic Discipline Marriage by Leena Darling

Despite what the title might lead you to believe, there is nothing wholesome about Michael and Jenna's Christian Domestic Discipline Marriage. There are four chapters, which all have the same theme: Jenna does something that Michael doesn't like, and he spanks her for it.

In "Jenna's Punishment Spanking,” Jenna's upset that Michael booked a Caribbean getaway out of the blue, so he spanks her for it.

In "Jenna's Reminder Spanking,” Jenna doesn't actually do anything wrong, but Michael still spanks her for it.

In "Jenna's Hairbrush Spanking,” Jenna fakes an illness to get out of a spanking, and Michael spanks her for it.

And in "Jenna's Bathtime Spanking"... you get the idea.

While this would, presumably, be a must-read in the Pence household, I think I'll hard pass on this one if I ever see it again.

Worst line: "’I believe a husband has a right to punish his wife, and I shared this belief with you before we got married.’"

This Time with Love: A Christian Romance (The McKinleys Book 1) by Kimberly Rae Jordan

Scratch everything I said above. I'll take weird discipline sex any day over whatever this was. Self-described as "heartwarming Christian romance," this is the Kindle Unlimited version of a chastity belt. With a description emphasizing "love, faith and family," a toned down, modest erotica didn't seem like such a bad explore upon completing Michael And Jenna’s Christian Domestic Discipline Marriage. My "customers also bought" section even suggested it on that page! In this tale of devotion, a guy called Eric McKinley finds himself at a singles church retreat with his ex-girlfriend Anastacia Stapleton, who is single-mothering a kid he doesn't know he has. Things didn't work out for them when they dated six years ago because they weren't Christians, but now they both are, and now everything's great and blah blah blah. Turns out there isn't actually any sex, just four lightly-described kisses. It's not even erotica. I got Godfished.

Worst line: “What about what God wants?”

Lipstick Lesbian Tales #1: My First Time by Anonymous

The plot of this one concerns two catalog models named Clair and Josephine who have sex in a dressing room in the most awkward way possible. Here's a play-by-play:

They "squirmed around in ecstasy" and "caressed" each other's "upper arms" and kissed each other's "clavicles" and "nibbled" on each others' cartilage, and there was "surreptitious liquid" that came out of holes, and they pinned each other down and "gyrated on the couch" and fondled each other's breasts while also fondling their own breasts and did "exploratory probes" into each other's assholes and the "inner flesh" became melded and then someone was "panting like a hyena" leading to an "orgasmic coma."

Lots of weird verbiage and phrasing. Josephine also complains a lot about how she can't see all of Claire's body from certain angles. But that's, like, how vision works?

Worst line: "I ate her musky patch with abandon slobbering tongue over every centimeter of her flower. She ground her sex into my oral entry, gyrated her hips, fondled her tits, and rode my face like a cowgirl. Her wetness threatened to drown me. She became so drenched she slid over my face like a skater on ice."

The Feminizer 2 (Fem Book 2) by Eva Long

Pinpointing what was wrong about this piece is difficult. There's so much!

Maybe it's the fact that psychologist Joni fashions herself a douchebag vigilante and roofies and kidnaps guys a la Dexter? Or it could be the fact that she electrocutes and uses sexual torture devices on them? Also, I mean, I guess it could be the fact that she lets her colleague Jake molest them? And it's definitely the fact that over nine pages of sexual assault she turns guys deviously gay. Yeah. That's it.

Worst line: Literally all of it.

In Conclusion

To reiterate: nobody is weirder than horny people. Perhaps I took the whole reprogramming aspect personally, but The Feminizer 2 was 100 percent the worst piece I read on my search. Yes, I know erotica should be taken with a grain of salt, but the book contended you could torture someone into homosexuality, and that's a no-no for me, sweetie. Whether it's the worst piece of erotica on Amazon out of the thousands I didn't read, I'm going to guess probably not.

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