Gasps as Nancy Huston scoops 2012 Bad Sex Award

I admit it: I was wrong.

I was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that BBC Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason would win the 2012 Bad Sex in Fiction Awards for his ikebana-cum-gymnastic efforts in his debut novel Rare Earth:

He began thrusting wildly in the general direction of her chrysanthemum but missing, his paunchy frame shuddering with the effort of remaining rigid and upside down.

But he didn’t. Not only are my credentials as a literary critic now in contention, but my confidence in calling bad sex when I see it has been shattered.

At a ceremony held at London’s stately Naval & Military Club (better and perhaps more aptly known as The In & Out) Samantha Bond of Downton Abbey fame presented Britain’s least-coveted prize to Canadian author Nancy Huston for her 14th novel, Infrared, about a woman who snaps (as in photographs) her lovers while making love.

Nancy Huston
The judges were impressed by Huston’s alliterative descriptions of the human body – “flesh, that archaic kingdom that brings forth tears and terrors, nightmares, babies and bedazzlements” and “my sex swimming in joy like a fish in water” – giving special mention to this passage that reminds readers (or not) why the brain is the largest sex organ:

When our bodies unite for the third time we leave all theatres behind. What happens then has as little to do with the libertinage prized by the French (oh the blasphemers, the precious precocious ejaculators, the nasty naughty boys, the cruel fouteurs and fouetteurs) as with the healthy, egalitarian intercourse championed by Americans (who hand out bachelors degrees in G-points, masters in masturbation and Ph.Ds in endorphines).

The undaunted might like to read a more graphic excerpt at the Guardian. Huston, who now lives in Paris, did not cross the channel to collect her award, but she did send a brief acceptance speech:

I hope this prize will incite thousands of British women to take close-up photos of their lovers' bodies in all states of array and disarray.

The plural possessive apostrophe, I’m told, is not an error.

Huston – whose accolades include France’s premier literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, the Prix Femina, and a shortlisting for the 2010 Orange Prize – is only the third woman to win the Bad Sex prize since its inception in 1993.

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9 Comments sorted by

  1. Comment removed by moderator.

  2. Linus Bowden

    management consultant

    While I do not wish to detract from the undoubted badness of the male prose winners of past, shirley the judges have been remiss in not celebrating the puking awfulness of Professor Judith Butler whenever her quill turns to matters of sex?

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    2. Linus Bowden

      management consultant

      In reply to Linus Bowden

      Bronwyn, I bought "The Beauty Myth" the day it was released in Australia. After about 20 pages, I realised I was reading words typed by a very silly bint, who knew nothing about beauty or myth. And that indeed she was just talking out of her twat. After her latest typographical twat-off, she has exploded into my Top Ten List of "Humanity's Most Appalling People". I mean, really, how much of Naomi Wolf's muff is too much? Now, on a more generous note, I should be thrilled to read your thoughts on Edmund White's thoughts on these matters. Though, thank god, Edmund is a notorious confirmed bachelor, so we are spared La Wolf's twatological twitiness!

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/06/essential-guide-to-good-sex-writing

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  4. Christina Williams

    Teacher

    Oh deary me Miss Bronwyn how could you be so wrong? Mason was good, very good- using the crysanthemum as a floral symbol for our womanhood has me having nightmares when Mother's Day next comes around. But you are remiss in the non-selection of - "making you see only stars, constellations, milky ways, propelling you bodiless and soulless into undulating space where the undulating skies make your non-body undulate ...
    and -
    " the way a man's face is transformed by orgasm — oh it's not true they all look alike, you have to be either miserable and broke or furiously blasé and sarcastic to say they all look alike — to me, every climax is unique."

    Miserable and broke? Furiously blase and sarcastic? They ? All?

    ...and every sperm is sacred ...and is that a turnip shaped thingy?

    Think I'll stick to non-body Monty Python and undulating Blackadder....

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    1. Bronwyn Lea

      Senior Lecturer in the School of English Media Studies and Art History at University of Queensland

      In reply to Christina Williams

      You're quite right. I couldn't bring myself to type up those sentences so I linked instead to the Guardian's post. But, I'm puzzled: what does being "broke" have to do with an impairment in interpreting facial expressions. Any ideas?

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  5. Christina Williams

    Teacher

    Curious isn't it? Perhaps if you are broke, your perception is so impaired, and presumably you are hungry, that you are thinking of a two all beef paddy special sauce...ya da ya da on sesame seed bun and this seats you on the lowest rung of Abraham Maslow's pyramid in the hierarchy of needs. This would obviously impair your ability to read Kamal's facial expressions. Now if you are rich, you go to the top of the pyramid because self-actualisation and fulfilment reside there. You see both his forest and his trees. She does not elaborate on the rich and miserable however.

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