For reasons that are too obvious to get into, 2020 has been the Year of Bad. So the Literary Review has decided to give readers across the world a little break.
The magazine announced that it will not be giving out its Bad Sex in Fiction Award this year, the Guardian reports.
“The judges felt that the public had been subjected to too many bad things this year to justify exposing it to bad sex as well,” the magazine wrote on its website. “They warned, however, that the cancellation of the 2020 awards should not be taken as a license to write bad sex.”
The Bad Sex in Fiction is (usually) awarded annually to the “most outstandingly awful scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel.”
Winners—well, “winners”—of the prize have included Tom Wolfe (“Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth”), Ben Okri (“When his hand brushed her nipple it tripped a switch and she came alight”) and—heaven knows he’s miserable now—Morrissey (“The pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement”).
The award’s judges said they anticipate “a rash of entries” next year because of the coronavirus lockdown. (Yay?)
“Authors are reminded that cybersex and other forms of home entertainment fall within the purview of this award,” the judges warned. “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.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
