The Literary Review Bad Sex award.was set up by the literary critic RhodaKoenig and the late editor of the Literary Review Auberon Waugh in 1993"to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use ofredundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourageit."
As has become customary for this award, there was stiff competition, withsuch notables as the Nobel prize-winner André Brink being one of thecontenders. In a recent interview to the Guardian, Tom Wolfe hadsaid: "I have tried to make the sex un-erotic. I will have failed ifanyone gets the least bit excited. So much of modern sex is un-erotic, if eroticmeans flight of fancy or romantic build-up."
Obviously, the judges agreed with him. It may be recalled that AniruddhaBahl had was the winner of last year's award. Wolfe became one of the very fewauthors in the award's 12 year history to decline the invitation to receive theaward.
The Winning Passage
I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe (Jonathan Cape)
Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off thetop of a cone without using his teeth. She tried to make her lips move in syncwith his. The next thing she knew, Hoyt had put his hand sort of under her thighand hoisted her leg up over his thigh. What was she to do? Was this the pointshe should say, "Stop!"? No, she shouldn't put it that way. It wouldbe much cooler to say, "No, Hoyt," in an even voice, the way you wouldtalk to a dog that insists on begging at the table.
Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was whatshe tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of hertorso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns - oh God, itwas not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoralsheath of the chest - no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She mustsay "No, Hoyt" and talk to him like a dog. . .
. . . the fingers went under the elastic of the panties moan moan moan moanmoan went Hoyt as he slithered slithered slithered slithered and caress caresscaress caress went the fingers until they must be only eighths of inches fromthe border of her public hair - what's that! - Her panties were so wet down. . .there - the fingers had definitely reached the outer stand of the field of pubichair and would soon plunge into the wet mess that was waiting right. . .there-there-
(p368-9)
Other Contenders - Longlist
Before I Forget by André Brink (Secker & Warburg)
. . . the most tousled, tangled pubic patch through which I have ever had tofind my way. A near impenetrable little forest, a small private Amazon to getlost in. But when one finally got down to the river, slipping and slidingthrough reeds and weeds and rushes and undergrowth, one could slither throughthe mud and dive in, wholly immerse oneself, stay down for an impossibly longtime, nearly drowning, before coming up again, panting and heaving. . .
(p140)
. . . the mound of her sex . . . was disproportionately - but beautifully -high and rounded, overgrown with a luxuriant mop of long black pubic hair, notcrinkly at all, but soft and feathery; and the vulva itself ... was of unusualplumpness, almost spherical, like a large exotic mushroom in the fork of a tree,a little pleasure dome if ever I've seen one, where Alph the sacred river randown to a tideless sea. No, not tideless. Her tides were convulsive, an ebb andflow that could take you very far, far back, before hurling you out, wildly andtriumphantly, on a ribbed and windswept beach without end
(pp202-3)
". . . I would plunge into her from above like a diver in search ofabalone."
(p171-2)
Snobs by Julian Fellowes (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Still without a word he turned back to her, the same furious intensity in hisface, and, avoiding direct eye contact, he started to kiss her while he plantedhis right hand against her vagina. Once it was in place, he began to massage herwith a kind of dry pumping action, which reminded her of someone blowing up alilo. She groaned a bit by way of encouragement. He didn't seem to need more assuddenly he heaved himself over between her legs, fumbled himself into her,thrust away a few times - no more than six at the outside - and then, with aterrific gasp to tell her that it was now (which she countered with some criesand pants of her own), he collapsed on top of her. The whole business, from themoment he folded the paper, had taken perhaps eight minutes.Ah, thought Edith.
"Thank you, darling." One of Charles's more irritating habits wasalways to thank Edith after sex, as if she had just brought him a cup of tea. Ofcourse, at this point, she did not know it was habitual.
TheLast Song of Dusk by Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi (Weidenfeld &Nicolson)
Was it on the bed that she sat on him, her weasel-like loins clutching andunclutching his lovely, long, louche manhood, as though squeezing an orange forits juice? Or was it on the balcony swing, much later, that he buried histhirsty tongue in those thick pink lips between her legs? She loved most thelusciousness of his buttocks, their dimpled circumference, as though God hadcreated them only so she might pull him farther into herself and then muffle herrapturous pleasure as she had, only a few hours back, muffled her anguish. ...they had exhausted all the wild beasts lurking in the forests of their flesh. ..
(p35)
Cherry by Matt Thorne (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
I still had the brush. I gripped it tightly, even as Cherry embraced me. Shewas on all fours, with me lying beneath her. I let her hold me, then moved thebrush to my crotch, pointing it upwards. I wasn't sure what I was doing. Thekiss had changed the temperature of the moment, altering our interaction fromerotic fantasy to sexual intimacy. . . . It was true that in my years without awoman my fantasies had frequently been shaped by material created out of emptyanger and pain, and it was an attempt to legitimise (in the sense of seeking afemale response to) this form of frustrated lust that I acted now, bringing myhips up so the tip of the brush handle pressed against Cherry's labia.
(p88)
Shantaramby Gregory David Roberts (Little, Brown)
I held Karla as if holding her could heal me, and we didn't make love untilnight lit the last star in our wide window of sky. Her hands were kisses on myskin. My lips unrolled the curled leaf of her heart. She breathed in murmurs,guiding me, and I spoke rhythm to her, echoing my needs. Heat joined us, and weenclosed ourselves with touch and taste and perfumed sounds. Reflected on theglass, we were silhouettes, transparent images - mine full of fire from thebeach, and hers full of stars. And at last, at the end, those clear reflectionsof our selves melted, merged, and fused together.
(p658)
I pressed my lips against the sky, and licked the stars into my mouth. Shetook my body into hers, and every movement was an incantation. Our breathing waslike the whole world chanting prayers. Sweat ran in rivulets to ravines ofpleasure. Every moment was a satin skin cascade. Within the velvet cloaks oftenderness, our backs convulsed in quivering heat, pushing heat, pushing musclesto complete what minds begin and bodies always win. I was hers. She was mine. Mybody was her chariot, and she drove it into the sun. Her body was my river, andI became the sea. And the wailing moan that drove our lips together, at the end,was the world of hope and sorrow that ecstasy wrings from lovers as it floodstheir souls with bliss.
(p400)
Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam (Faber & Faber)
At the tip of his penis, the dot of starlit ache - which had to be kept inplace and referred to periodically to maintain the erection, but was never to bedwelt on because then it would spread and lead to climax - was growing larger.
His mouth looked for the oiled berry. Her taste came and went tidally saltand sour in his mouth, as eloquent as weather.
When he fell through the sensation and opened his eyes he was surprised tofind her there.
And he could not hold her close enough.
The smell of his armpits was on her shoulders - a flower depositing pollen ona hummingbird's forehead.
They detonated the remains of each other's orgasms with fingers and tongues,areas of their bodies sticking together with sweat that was like the weak gluethat holds segments of an orange together.
(p127)
The Food of Love by Anthony Capella (Timewarner)
She felt strange and wild. Her body was just a collection of organs. She wasblood and plumbing, like any other creature, and there was nothing that wasforbidden about any of it. She gnawed on Tomasso ravenously, like an animalplundering a carcass, and when she had had enough of that she swung her leg overhim, like a rider swinging into a saddle, and galloped.
She was riding naked on a big horse, among a pack of hunting wolves, atnight. The flanks of the horse were slippery with foam. She could sensesomething in the distance, some small animal which was desperately trying toescape the pack, but they were getting closer to it every second. The wolvescould sense it, too, and increased their pace. She galloped faster, urging hermount on with little cries and squeezes of her thighs. Closer and closer theygot to their quarry. Now there was a jump ahead, a vast wall rushing towardsher, but it was too late to stop. She dug her nails in hard and held on for dearlife. As she finally took off into the air, she arched her back and shouted. Theanimal was screaming, too, as the wolves finally caught it and tore it apart,ripping its soft pajate open with their sharp teeth, devouring the coratella andthe bloody bright red heart.
(p99)
Virgin in the Gym and other stories: Room Service by Wendy Perriam(Robert Hale)
The startled bed was rocking as he made her come with just his mouth: bristlychin, velvet lips. "Yes, more!" she cried as his tongue probed andthrust. "It's wonderful! It's wonderful!" He had peeled her like akiwi fruit and she was all glistening-moist and sensitive as his unstintingtongue went deeper. Nothing existed in her universe save the long slow stroke ofthat tongue, opening her wider and wider until the whole of him seemed to slipinside her and explore her body from the inside out. He was licking a lazypathway from her womb to her lungs to her heart, and their bloodstreams wereconverging into one reckless scarlet pulse. There were no boundaries betweenthem now: he was seeing through her eyes, swallowing with her throat, digestingwith her juices. And all the Pierres that had ever been - the child Pierre, theboy Pierre, the student, poet, painter Pierre, the tender, violent, wild Pierre- were fused with her and part of her, part of her seethe and squall.
"Yes, Pierre, I'm coming!" she shouted, winding her fingers tighterinto his hair.
(p56)
Dr Mukti and other tales of woe: Dr Mukti by Will Self (Bloomsbury)
Whimpering and grinding his teeth, Shiva swung open the gate and enteredanother of the fields on his funny farm. He herded the cow into thehoof-cratered corner by the water trough, then slipped his trousers off so hecould mount her. His first wife Sandra bucked and mooed beneath him. Despite thetumult of upheaving flesh Shiva still noticed - with lofty, Brahminical pity -the sprinkling of livid spots on the inside of her anal cleft. Sandra's conicalfingers, which resembled jeweller's ring trees, dug into an earthen bolster, andher high-pitched bellows rent the rapidly compressing atmosphere.
(p100)
Young Turk by Moris Farhi (Saqi Books)
. . . I am stretched out on a sofa.My beloved is determined to assess myage. She has an infallible method for doing so: the way they ascertain a tree'sage: by counting the rings in its trunk. Consequently, she has my member in hermouth. Her lips are thick with lipstick. Starting from the base of my penis, hermouth ambles upwards. At each half-centimetre, her lips imprint a red ringaround the shaft. She continues until she runs out of length. She counts therings. On this occasion they add up to thirty-six. (An hour ago, the number hadbeen forty-one.) She cuddles up to me. She coos. "Thirty-odd rings. What amature oak in one so young!" We embrace. She smears her breasts and vaginawith rose-petal jam. She squats above my face so that I can imbibe her splendour.She lowers herself on to my mouth and lets me lap up every bit of the rose-petaljam. Then she mounts me and, as she begins to rock, she rubs her breasts allover my face. I am in such ecstasy that I am ready to die. In fact, I want todie, because I know I shall never again find this heaven, the Seventh Heaven.
(p262)
