Edit, undo me

November 25, 2009 11:40 PM

"Meanwhile, down in Vaginaland, Mr Condom's beginning to feel a bit iffy. He's overheating. For some reason, the shagging seems to be twice as fast this evening, and he grimaces as he gets flung willy-nilly in and out of the pink tunnel. He starts getting friction burns, hanging onto Bobby's stiff penis for dear life, headbutting Georgie's cervix at 180 beats per minute. 'Help me!' he yells in the darkness, feeling himself melting."
This year's worst sex. [NSFW or post-turkey family reading]

Also, Flavorpill relives its baddest of the bad: "She moved her hips again and continued to fuck my lights out. I thought of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, the story goes, knew the instant he heard the name Adolf Hitler that he had brushed up against the reason he was born."

posted by iamkimiam (44 comments total)

"and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro."

I have to wonder how long her arms are.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:47 PM on November 25, 2009

I have to wonder how long her arms are.

Or how many arms she has. Or where his dick is located, somewhere on the back I suppose.
posted by IvoShandor at 11:56 PM on November 25, 2009

Or how many arms she has. Or where his dick is located, somewhere on the back I suppose.

I think it's detachable, and I count three arms on her. What I wonder about is how many legs his penis has.
posted by neewom at 12:15 AM on November 26, 2009

Sadie lost her husband almost four years ago and still has not gotten out of her depression, mourning as if it were only yesterday. Her daughter constantly is calling her and urging her to get back into the world. Finally, Sadie says she'd go out, but didn't know anyone. Her daughter immediately replies, "Mama! I have someone for you to meet."

Well, it was an immediate hit. They took to one another and after dating for six weeks he asks her to join him for a weekend in the Catskills. And we know what that meant. Their first night there she undresses, as he does. There she stood, nude, except for a pair of black lacy panties. He in his birthday suit. Looking at her he asks, "Why the black panties?" She replies, "My breasts you can fondle, my body is yours to explore, but down there I am still in mourning."

He knows he's not getting lucky that night. The following night the same scenario. She standing there with the black panties on and he in his birthday suit; except that he has an erection on which he has a black condom. She looks at him and asks, "What's with this... a black condom?" He replies, "I want to offer my condolences."
posted by netbros at 12:18 AM on November 26, 2009 [28 favorites]

Nick Cave should certainly win. That passage isn't really the worst thing in The Death Of Bunny Munro.
posted by koeselitz at 12:22 AM on November 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath
What?
posted by !Jim at 12:23 AM on November 26, 2009

I dunno if the Richard Milward bit quoted above the fold deserves to be in the mix. It's plainly meant to be ridiculous, whereas most of the others are unbearably sincere. It's pretty entertaining, really... I actually think it's reasonably well-written.
posted by painquale at 12:24 AM on November 26, 2009

Ridiculously bad sex is a subset of bad sex, no?
posted by iamkimiam at 12:27 AM on November 26, 2009

Like when the shower head falls off the thing that attaches it to the wall and lands in the bath with the water jets still pumping out, thrashing wildly, yearning, hoping, scrabbling for just 25 or 30 seconds more.
posted by Edwahd at 12:27 AM on November 26, 2009 [7 favorites]

Wow.

I was in the mood for porn tonight.

Even bad porn.

I couldn't make it past the Oz passage.

Wow.

Just...

Wow.
posted by Samizdata at 12:31 AM on November 26, 2009

netbros: what is that from?
posted by delmoi at 12:31 AM on November 26, 2009

Phillip Roth should be eligible for a lifetime achievement award for bad sex writing by now.
posted by minifigs at 12:54 AM on November 26, 2009

I really like the Nick Cave examples - it's certainly made me more likely to buy the book.
posted by DanCall at 2:50 AM on November 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

River squeezes Bunny's cock with her muscular vagina.
'Wow,' says Bunny, from the depths of space.
'Pilates,' says River.
'Huh?' grunts Bunny.
'Cunt crunches,' says River, and contracts her pelvic floor again.

There is nothing else to say, but Cunt Crunches.
posted by Monday at 4:07 AM on November 26, 2009 [6 favorites]

It felt to him as if he were tending a delicate weeping wound,

There were a few sentences there that crossed the line from bad to icky.

I think it wasn't so fair to include the Littel passages, because he's attempting to portray the sex life of a seriously disturbed and crazy person. Whether or not his portrayal works is a fair question, but the bad sex is a central part of that portrayal.

The others, who are mostly trying to be funny or sexy, deserve to be made fun of, and I like the idea of a lifetime achievement award for Roth.
posted by Forktine at 4:17 AM on November 26, 2009

I think the "cunt crunches" scene is only bad if you're not supposed to read it and laugh which -- out of context -- I kinda can't say for sure you are, but I'm pretty sure you are. Before coffee, dreading travel, "bulletproof pussy" seems right now like something that'll be cracking me up all day.

However, the passage (as it were) quoted in the FPP abstract is just so awful on any level that it will haunt me for weeks.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:23 AM on November 26, 2009

ok, not so sound dirty, but could there be more of that [more inside]? That was a little much to wake up to.

Flung willy nilly? How could there be too much friction then? And how could Mr. Condom have memories of other nights' shagging?

Ech. Reading these reminded me of my days in Print Dispatch, sorting out the printouts from the coveted laser printer and putting them in their respective delivery slots (great, now everything's sounding dirty).

Anyway, the morning's first batch and stuff (dammit!) printed after 11:00 usually had a good percentage of baaaad sex writing.
posted by lysdexic at 4:28 AM on November 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

'Pilates,' says River.
'Huh?' grunts Bunny.
'Cunt crunches,' says River, and contracts her pelvic floor again.

IANAFemale, but ...wouldn't River be referring to Kegels, not Pilates?
posted by kittyprecious at 6:26 AM on November 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Excited by the oysterish intricacy of her he sucked and licked the salty folds...

...but his engorged, throbbing, slimy tongue contorted into a paralyzed, twisted piece of useless meat at the thought of the phrase "Oysterish intricacy, oysterish intricacy, oysterish intricacy..."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:40 AM on November 26, 2009 [6 favorites]

I thought Cunt Crunches was a breakfast cereal.
posted by mazola at 6:42 AM on November 26, 2009 [9 favorites]

It would have been, if those prudes at Kellogg's hadn't gone all tight-assed about the box art.
posted by PlusDistance at 6:57 AM on November 26, 2009 [8 favorites]

You're thinking of Alpha-Clits.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:13 AM on November 26, 2009 [11 favorites]

No, Kellogs Tight-asses was renamed Grape-nuts, they wanted smething more visually descriptive.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:19 AM on November 26, 2009 [6 favorites]

Kegel's Porn Flakes
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:21 AM on November 26, 2009 [5 favorites]

Not this again.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:26 AM on November 26, 2009

gravid tremulousness?

Wow.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 7:38 AM on November 26, 2009

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Bad Sex Awards are an annoyingly sniggery, Mail-readery (or Mail reviewer-y) institution. For a start, it's an offshoot of the Literary Review, which was basically founded by Auberon Waugh as a kind of literary counterpart to the Spectator. Sneering at stuff for being representative of the ghastly modern world is/was a big part of the Waugh project, and some of that carries over into the Bad Sex Award thing, which also has an extra layer of prudish tittering.

Like Pseuds' Corner in Private Eye, it also has institutionally poor joke detection. Several of these passages are plainly comic. So what do these guys want? That all sex scenes should be written with DH Lawrence-style earnestness? (Actually they probably do want that, DH Lawrence-style earnestness being pretty funny.) No sex scenes at all? Then what would they put up for their annual moment in the limelight?

Plus, the annoyingness and triviality of the whole thing means that the real offenders - 'gravid tremulousness of her breasts' should be up for a Bad Writing Award - can shrug the whole thing off.
posted by Mocata at 8:08 AM on November 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: down there I am still in mourning
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:35 AM on November 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Also, reviews like these are specifically why I never actually submit my yearly NaNoWriMo. (seriously - November 2007 was all bad robot sex all the time)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:36 AM on November 26, 2009

The titular (as it were) quote recalled to me immediately the worst sex writing I ever read. It was in fact poetry, a self-published (I believe) volume called "The Outrageous Adventures of Tadwag, The Little Satyr Who Disturbed the Smugness of the Universe." Chunks of it remain with me like shrapnel.

"Lust! Lust!
I must! I must!
Or else I'll bust!"
Tadwag grunted in rhyme
As he slutted in three-quarter time . . .

followed with

. . . And then Tadwag danced
And merrily pranced
His way into vaginaland.

I looked up the author and discovered that in fact he is a respected professor, although not, I stress, of poetry.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:05 AM on November 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

One wonders, do the authors actually read what they've written?
posted by tommasz at 9:15 AM on November 26, 2009

Well, I can say my mind (and possibly my soul) certainly feel fucked after all that.
posted by yeloson at 9:43 AM on November 26, 2009

I'm still looking for the post-turkey bit. It doesn't sound very sexy, really.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:43 AM on November 26, 2009

The green cock plunged in and out of the abundant naked body sprawled beneath it, slow at first, then faster and harder, then harder still, and all of Tracy's curves and hollows moved in unison with it.

Philip Roth novel or Shrek fanfic?
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:05 AM on November 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Interesting. Personally, I like a sex scene with a sense of mystery. Something like this:

Don Carlo De Mendoza had spent his life in pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. A scion of an extremely wealthy family who had made their fortune exploiting the silver mines of Potosí, he had never had to worry about money or work. Instead he had fucked his way around the royal courts of Europe, always in search of the ultimate lover. He had had courtesans and princesses, duchesses and even a queen or two, but now it was time for the zenith of his career as a stud. The grand prize. Catherine the Great.

He arrived at Catherine's court early, and despite is arrogant swagger, he was nervous. Not only was she an empress, but she was also the most notorious female lover in all of Europe. Rumors abounded as to the extent of her sexual conquests; was it 500 or 5,000? As he walked with his escort through the palace he found himself in awe of this pantheon to sexual excess. Nudes abounded in a plethora of sexual poses both in painted and in sculpted form. But there were living nudes too. All of her male retainers walked around with their genitals displayed, each of them personally selected by Catherine for their prodigious members.

As he walked into the last chamber, he saw a light underneath the door and he knew that Catherine could not be far away. He stripped as ordered and waited. The lights went out. Suddenly he felt a soft had on his solid, rock-like abdomen and another caressing his face. Gradually both hands went down to his already tumescent member and they grasped his manhood firmly. From the inky blackness he heard a single word: "Da" and the lights went on. He was face to face with Catherine and her retainers left.

Withing seconds she had undressed and clasped him to her breast, her hands all the time manipulating him. Before he even had time to respond she pushed him onto a couch and had taken his throbbing cock inside her.

Worlds collided as he thrust into her. His eyes closed and opened as if fearful to witness what was pure, unadulterated ecstasy. He shunted into her, her pussy was needy, hungry. Her ample breasts heaved as she shouted words that meant nothing and everything to him. He was conscious and unconscious, he felt real and unreal. Clearly she was the ultimate prize, no woman had ever fucked him like this before. It seemed to go on for hours.

As they lay back, both basking in their post-coital glow, he knew it was time to ask the question that had eluded him all of his life. The question that had driven his licentiousness. He was a seeker and he sought the answer to just one question. Only the greatest of nymphomaniacs could possibly know the answer, and now he knew that Catherine was just that.

As their fingers entwined and only the sound of their breaths filled the room, he opened his mouth to form the words to the question, the answer to which was his Holy Grail:



"What the ever living fuck is hardcore taters?"
posted by ob at 10:12 AM on November 26, 2009 [15 favorites]

Previously - the 2008 awards.

Like Zorro.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:15 AM on November 26, 2009

Gravid Tremulousness is my new Culture Ship.
posted by SPrintF at 10:16 AM on November 26, 2009

Tremulously, he clicks his username, which reveals his profile. He feels dirty doing this, but he's like the moth to the electric flame, unable to stay away.

He notices that there is one more favorite than before, when he'd checked two whole mintues previously. . .

His pulse and manhood rise as one and he clicks, then clicks again.

YES! YES! It was her. She had indeed favorited his comment!

Short moments later, he lays back, spent, breathing slowing down.

He then puts the sock in the laundry and returns to this hopeless yet all-encompassing screen.
posted by Danf at 10:18 AM on November 26, 2009 [5 favorites]

Well I'm not contributing to that.
posted by mazola at 10:59 AM on November 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

"and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro."

     I have to wonder how long her arms are.

Maybe she has really long fingernails.
posted by mazola at 12:00 PM on November 26, 2009

If you read them as trying to be erotic and arousing, the passages from Nick Cave's "The Death of Bunny Monro" are definitely quite horrible. But, and I haven't read the book yet, although I read "And the Ass Saw the Angel", knowing Nick Cave, he's probably pretty directly going for the grotesque, filthy, and totally unerotic here.

That's kind of his thing, although he's also quite capable of writing stuff that's at least very poetic, tender, and romantic, as shown in some of his song lyrics (check out "Watching Alice" or "The Loom of the Land", for instance).

So I'm wondering, should this be on the list, if it's intentional?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:07 PM on November 26, 2009

One wonders, do the authors actually read what they've written?


I think selection criteria is determined by a process wherein the judges have sex with each book. If any of them climax early, they make the shortlist.
posted by mannequito at 1:44 PM on November 26, 2009

So I'm wondering, should this be on the list, if it's intentional?

It depends on how you parse the name of the award.

I'm in the exact same boat as you. I read And the Ass Saw the Angel and was pretty impressed. I haven't read this one, but it reads like Nick Cave wrote it as he meant to. For Cave, as the narration becomes awkward or semi-sensical it runs parallel to the awkwardness or semi-sense of the situation.
posted by cmoj at 8:09 PM on November 26, 2009

The Oz piece was particularly awful, and not even mercifully brief. Please, for the love of literature -- or out of empathy for readers -- do not combine sex and sailing in purple prose to convey erotic passages intended to be taken seriously.
posted by notashroom at 9:55 AM on November 27, 2009