IF you are a fan of the most dreaded literary prize of British fiction, you'll have to wait until 2021. This year's edition of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which rewards, and therefore discourages "the most outstandingly awful scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel," was canceled for the first time in ten years.
The Literary Review editors, which have organized this tongue-in-cheek prize since 1993, announced their decision this week. The awards' judges said in a press release that they made this "difficult" decision because "the public had been subjected to too many bad things this year to justify exposing it to bad sex as well."
While the announcement may relieve modern fiction writers, the organizers insisted that the cancellation of this year's awards should not be taken as a "licence to write bad sex." A spokesperson for the prize noted that "with lockdown regulations giving rise to all manner of novel sexual practices, the judges anticipate a rash of entries next year."
The spokesperson added that complying with current health guidelines in their novels would not necessarily prevent authors from being shortlisted next year. "Authors are reminded that cybersex and other forms of home entertainment fall within the purview of this award. Scenes set in fields, parks or backyards, or indoors with the windows open and fewer than six people present will not be exempt from scrutiny either."
As its name suggests, the Bad Sex in Fiction Award pays tribute to the worst sex scene depiction in English speaking literature. The prize organizers want to draw attention to "the poorly written, redundant, or downright cringeworthy passages of sexual description in modern fiction," but the the prize is not intended to cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature. Mainstream and acclaimed writers have made it on the shortlist for the prize in the past years, notably Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Mary Costello and Salman Rushdie.
The winners of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award usually take prize with humor, as Melvyn Bragg, Iain Hollingshead, James Frey and Rachel Johnson have done. But that's not always the case. Singer Morrissey is an example of a writer being more disgruntled. The singer who "won" the award in 2015 for his first novel "List of the Lost," the former Smiths singer declared to Uruguay newspaper El Observador that he felt it was "best to maintain an indifferent distance" from the prize, "because there are too many good things in life to let these repulsive horrors pull you down." – ETX Studio, December 11, 2020
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