The nominees for Literary Review's annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award have been announced. The Bad Sex in Fiction award was established in 1993 by the magazine's then editor, Auberon Waugh, in order to "draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it."
The 2011 shortlist includes some big names: Haruki Murakami, nominated for 1Q84, Stephen King for 11.22.63, James Frey for The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, and Chris Adrian for The Great Night, among others. Previous nominees include Jonathan Franzen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tom Wolfe, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Roth, who -- surprisingly -- has only been nominated once. John Updike holds the distinction of possessing the sole Lifetime Achievement award.
Literary Review has begun posting excerpts from the nominated works on Twitter. Recent posts include "Now he realised that he was inside her, ejaculating toward her uterus" (from Haruki Murakami's 1Q84) and "at the end she began to gasp 'oh dear, oh my dear, oh my dear dear god, oh sugar!'" (from Stephen King's 11.22.63).
The award is about bad prose, not bad sex (although the two are certainly not mutually exclusive). In a recent article for the Financial Times, Jonathan Beckman, senior editor of Literary Review, explains:
"'[B]ad' refers to the quality of the writing rather than the nature of intercourse. Unsuccessful, unpleasurable or abortive sex does not qualify per se; nor does kinky, brutal or unwanted sex, however unpalatable that may be."
An incredible number of literary heavyweights have been insulted with spots on the Bad Sex shortlist over the course of the past 19 years. Which begs the question: Has sufficient attention been paid to the art of writing sex scenes? Are authors unaware of the wealth of writing tips to be gleaned from Cosmopolitan's monthly Red Hot Reads?
I suspect not. With this in mind, I would like to offer the following advice to writers who want to craft good sex scenes:
"Penis" is not a sexy word. Use "member" instead. Or "package." Or, better yet, use both. Said members should be described in terms of length and rigidity. You should take care to include the word "throbbing" at least once. The appropriate female euphemism is "mound."
All participants must orgasm. Preferably simultaneously. And preferably multiple times. You are encouraged to use words typically associated with liquids when describing orgasms. A few strong examples from stories published in Cosmopolitan: "When he thrust, an unexpected pleasure rippled through her" (Karen Rose, "Scream For Me"); "Tiny waves of pleasure were still undulating through her body" (Eden Bradley, "Forbidden Fruit"); "She cried out his name as tremors rippled throughout her body. It was like an explosion of pleasure inside her, and she gasped at the sensation" (Christie Ridgway, "Must Love Mistletoe"). I also recommend "tsunami," "flood," "hail," and "waterfall."
The more metaphors, the better. If you use enough metaphors, your prose can become as powerful as an earthquake that registers an 8 on the Richter scale. Similarly, I recommend using as many adjectives as possible. You would be well served to keep a thesaurus nearby when writing and consult it regularly.
With the help of these tips, you, too, can write a sex scene that's worthy of distinction.
Jonathan Beckman acknowledges, "It is easy to dismiss the Literary Review Bad Sex Award as manifesting a peculiarly English attitude to sex that is both prurient and prudish."
Indeed, in a recent article for The Guardian, Honour Bayes describes the award in precisely these terms:
"The Literary Review looks down from its lofty position and gets ready to name and shame the author responsible for the worst sex scene of the year. But who are we [the British] really to judge?"
Hayes transitions into a criticism of the dearth of sexiness in British theater, contending that "sexiness is most real on stage when it is unaffected."
The same is true of fiction. Bayes misses the point of the Bad Sex Award, and, further, her criticism of British theater in fact parallels the ideology behind the award. Good sex writing, Beckman explains, is "clear, precise and...generally unobtrusive and undemonstrative." This is the kind of writing that Literary Review hopes to encourage.
Submissions for additional nominees for this year's award are still being accepted, but my bet's on Chris Adrian's The Great Night, which includes:
"...he rolled himself on her and off her and poked her now from the front and now from the back and now from the side" and "not actually knowing if it would be triumph or defeat until he came, standing, with both hands thrown high up over his head and his lady lifted to the stars on his impossibly stiff, impossibly eloquent cock. He came and came and came and fell backward."
Follow Isabel Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/isabelkaplan
Emily Chan: What Is It About Haruki Murakami?
C.A. Belmond: Writers Wednesday: 5 Lies They Tell You About Writing
Stephen King nominated for Bad Sex awards
The Blagger's Guide To...The Bad Sex Award
Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas: Bad sex award extract
I live to see the day "cockrocket" is used somewhere.
Here is my view: A long time ago, sex was something mysterious, so it made sense to talk about it in metaphors and elevated language. But, now sex is everywhere. We can access it with a click of a mouse. There is no more mystery.
So, to continue talking about sex using metaphors feels silly, childish, and prurient. It makes the prose look anachronistic. After all, you wouldn't talk about any other activity using this kind of language, so why do it for sex? The nature and practice of sex has changed. Fiction needs to keep up.
That is why the most successful recent examples of sex in fiction that I have read have described sex in extremely plain, almost clinical language. They just describe what is happening in the the plainest possible words - it almost feels like reading a medical account. I'm thinking of Ian McEwan in his novel Saturday or some of the recent work of Colm Toibin.
You are right about the mental aspect being the most important part of sex. But, what we are talking about here is the depiction of sex in fiction. Writers sometimes have to describe the physical act. The question is how are they going to do it? Will they talk about it in metaphors and flowery language? Or, will they describe it in plain, every day terms?
Katie Roiphe, who many seem to love to hate as an essayist, wrote an interesting piece in the NYT last year about the comparative stylings of the "Great Male Novelists" of the last century -- Updike, Bellows, Roth, Mailer, etc. vs. the new school of 'ontologists' -- Franzen, Wallace, Chabon, Eggers, etc. -- when it comes to describing the act. I thought it was a good read.
Here's the link if you're interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/books/review/Roiphe-t.html?pagewanted=all
I did read the Roiphe piece when it came out last year. I don't often agree with Roiphe, but I have to admit that she is a very good essayist.
Examples:
She thought she had done nothing to encourage him, but as he touched her innermost soul, her body betrayed her words. They both knew that something had to happen.
She wanted him, she wanted all of him, every last bit of his essence. This man, who had angered her so much previously, had now created wave after wave of joy in her. She felt a profound sense of unity with him.
He knew he was reaching the point of no return. He also knew that there was no turning back in his expression of his love for her. He poured all of his love into her as they truly became one.
She was helpless to resist him. Every touch, every kiss, every caress was leading to deeper and deeper contact between the two of them. They merged and moved as one, finding a rhythm which satisfied the deep hunger which had built up over their time together. The steady rhythm produced a steadily increasing joy within her. She wanted him to experience that same joy with her.
Here's an excerpt:
"…As the haughty young mare rustled gently in the next stall, Chad lowered himself onto Cheyenne, heart aflame and passion weeping, her coiled body undulating beneath his as he unleashed the full heft of his johnson onto the outer regions of her happy mound (thanks!), and slipped into the mysterious sacred triangle also known as her gooch. She suddenly screamed, “Not right there!” as the young mare whinnied and Chad quickly retorted, “I thought we talked about this”.
It was an endless summer of borking, and the two would make love often in that special place, or as Chad fondly recalled it, “have a go at it in the horse crapper”, until they both nearly drowned beneath the sweet, malarial vapor of horse doodie and star jasmine, awash in the eternal mystic tsunami of their untamed carnal desire.”
He says of the Haruki Murakami book:
"Haruki Murakami, author of the 1Q84 trilogy, might also have thought better of calling one of his female characters Fukaeri."
Her name is not Fukaeri, it's Eriko Fukada, which in the Japanese style is stated last name first, Fukada Eriko. She uses an unusual pen name which I think may be meant to suggest a hip-hop moniker, even though the book is set in 1984: Fuka-Eri. I doubt it has any sexual connotations in Japanese.
Bates hasn't read the book, which, first of all, is translated from Japanese. When Tengo Kawana is introduced to the Professor, whose surname is Ebisuno, the first thing he asks is "What characters do you write your name with?" and then a discussion of the literal meaning of the name follows. We don't know what characters the girl uses to spell her name.
I'm sure Honour Bayes is right about British literary chauvinism. For all I know, frank descriptions of sexuality may be what young Japanese readers need to read. Of the half-dozen or so Murakami novels I've read, the only one that falls into this category would be "South of the Border, West of the Sun."
My novel has a few scenes and I did find myself getting a little too much into describing the scenery but I think I've worked it out now.
Thanks so much, I will take your opinion anyday!