November 25, 2008

"Their separate bodies gradually lost their boundaries and merged into a third body..."

"... one that contained all their female and male differences and erased all their anatomical contrasts and inversions."

Who deserves the bad sex writing award this year? Want it to go to literary bullshit like that (from Russell Banks)?

Something more political....
His irrepressible carnality enthralled her. It was like the first time with her husband, her only other lover – but then it was not like that at all. In fact, she reflected, this is me losing my real virginity at the hands of this infernal, lovable, Jewish clown who is so unlike any of the macho Bolsheviks in my life.

He's a madman, she thought as he made love to her again. Oh my God, after twenty years of being the most rational Bolshevik woman in Moscow, this goblin has driven me crazy!...

He made her forget she was a Communist.

11 comments:

Synova said...

Interesting.

What appear to be mass-market romances are first-person. The other novels that may be "literary" are in third.

Meade said...

Rewrite:
He made love to her again, and again, and again. "Oh my God," she reflected, "he made me forget that I was a boring sexually unresponsive communist cold fish ideologue! Now, with him, I have hundreds of orgasms a day - free market orgasms, libertarian orgasms."

Anonymous said...

Who deserves the bad sex writing award this year?

I'm including transcribed speech as writing.

I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.

Winner.

Methadras said...

I liked the second passage about getting fucked out of being a communist. That has a sort of a jene se que orientation about it.

KCFleming said...

Reading those awful awful paragraphs was a literary cold shower. Made me long for stamp collecting.

Are there any good written depictions of sex? I ask from a purely scientific point of view, of course.

Anonymous said...

So much sex on Althouse lately!

(This is a good thing...)

Synova said...

Are there any good written depictions of sex? I ask from a purely scientific point of view, of course.

Well, no.

I mean, a whole lot of writers do this sort of thing to one degree or another *all the time*. Of course some of them are very good at it. On the other hand, if one starts at the almost chaste old-fashioned Harlequins that end with a passionate kiss and go from there, I don't think there is a sex or love scene that isn't a riot if it's read out loud.

Wince said...

"Who deserves the bad sex writing award..."

There, she stood in the doorway, her oversized grandma panties creased up her ample derriere. Me, I was dressed only in my black knee high dress socks. I tried to lift her on to the bed, but injured my back...

Oh, you mean bad writing about good sex. Nevermind.

Donna B. said...

All I will say is that I am pleased with the sex life I've had and that it bears no resemblance to those of the featured writers.

Of course, I never was a communist, so maybe I don't know what I'm so thrilled to be missing.

Trooper York said...

Writing about sex is the hardest writing there is.. wait let me rephrase that.

Darcy said...

Aww, Trooper! I was hoping you'd give us a rewrite, similar to Meade's (which was well done), but in your own style!

And Methadras: Your post was hilarious!