The Literary Review's Bad Sex Prize

December 4, 2003 7:58 AM

The Literary Review's Bad Sex Prize goes to Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal (Faber & Faber). The winning passage, which described a woman as "endomorphically endowed," also included the sentence, "Your palms are holding her neck and thumbs are at her ears regulating the speed of her head as she swallows and then sucks up your machinery." Oh baby.
posted by Slagman (9 comments total)

"Honey couldn't get my pants over my boots, so she pulled her hair up on top of her head, readjusted the tortoiseshell hair comb, took off her glasses and went straight to work with that long tongue of hers licking my bat and balls..."

ooh ya
posted by nthdegx at 8:46 AM on December 4, 2003

"...the ostentatious spurting which continues for so long that Paul becomes embarrassed and wonders if there's maybe something seriously wrong with him.

When, eventually, it does stop ... They each cling to opposite sides of the mattress, well away from the vast lagoon of semen in the centre of the bed, a thick coldness which will still be damp when Paul awakes the next morning. His dreams are furred with a strange sort of exhaustion."
posted by Aaorn at 10:01 AM on December 4, 2003

"My thing is how we censor ourselves during the day when we're not having sex."
posted by JohnR at 10:03 AM on December 4, 2003

Reading these excerpts outside of the books/stories they are from seems pretty silly. I don't think any of them are that bad and each is probably a lot better in context.

I've often been tempted to pick up Bunker 13 because of its great cover (compare to its boring American counterpart). If anything, the final sentence of the Guardian's excerpt ("You want to try different kinds of fusion.") makes me think I should definitely give it a go or order it from the library.
posted by dobbs at 10:47 AM on December 4, 2003

I much prefer this award to contests where people deliberately attempt to write bad sex scenes. After all, these are professionals who are trying to write well, which makes the results all the more amusing.
posted by pmurray63 at 11:02 AM on December 4, 2003

"Paul ejaculates voluminously and with very great force indeed."

Ooooh yeah. More! More! ; )
posted by SisterHavana at 11:09 AM on December 4, 2003

"'What's that?' you ask. You see a designer pussy. Hair razored and ordered in the shape of a swastika. The Aryan denominator..."

I was kinda disappointed with the swastika, I was hoping for DKNY.
posted by tommasz at 12:16 PM on December 4, 2003

I was kinda disappointed with the swastika, I was hoping for DKNY.

Will Gucci do?
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:00 PM on December 4, 2003

metafilter : vast lagoon of semen.
posted by sgt.serenity at 9:05 PM on December 4, 2003