Every year, the British publication Literary Review presents an award for Bad Sex in Fiction. Established in 1993 by the Literary Review editor, Auberon Waugh, and critic Rhoda Koenig, the award is given to high-profile literary novelists in an attempt to take them down a peg, really, though its purported mission is to "draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction."
French author, Didier Decoin and John Harvey, a life fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, were both announced as winners of the 2019 "Britain's most dreaded literary prize" after the judges struggled to pick just one winner.
This is the first time either author has won the prize. In a statement announcing the result on Monday night, the judges said: "Faced with two unpalatable contenders, we found ourselves unable to choose between them. We believe the British public will recognize our plight as we were unable to choose even after hours of tortuous debate".
One more fact worth noticing is that this hilariously bizarre award has been dominated by male novelists over the years and only three women have won in 26 years. We can only wonder why...
We have handpicked for you the most awful sexual scenes written in the last few years, including the two winning scenes of 2019.
