Bad Fiction Week: Is it Bad Sex in Fiction or is it Art?
Added 2024-12-27 10:51:27 +0000 UTCEarlier in the week, I included an excerpt from the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards. It went like this:
> She did it again and again, holding me with force and moving me to the rhythm of the surf. She wiggled her breasts beneath my hands and intensified the pushing. I went in up to my groin and came out almost entirely. My body was her gearstick.
On the surface, it seems horrendous, but upon closer inspection, things might not be quite so clearcut. The protagonist in question is an awkward adolescent in a comedic book. Was it bad sex in fiction? Or was it just an accurate portrayal of the character in the context of a somewhat satirical work?
Apparently, it’s the latter.
We also looked at a passage by Tom Wolfe that went like this:
> It has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns.
On the surface, that, too, would seem like horrendous writing, but let’s take a closer look at the context. The book is set in an elite university—prime terrain for pseudointellectualism. Its protagonist is shy, virginal, and shocked by the sexuality unfolding around her. It didn’t titillate her, so the scene didn’t titillate readers.
Is it bad sex in fiction? Or is it an accurate portrayal of the protagonist? It would seem the latter. Wolfe defended his Bad Sex in Fiction incident, saying he tried to take the eroticism out of sex on purpose. He said he found modern sex to be unerotic, and he was portraying his own observations.
If you look more closely at many of the other BSIF award winners, you find the same trend playing out again and again: These are not all examples of bad fiction. They’re examples of exceptional character development. As we discussed a few weeks ago, not all protagonists are likeable. Sometimes, the only way to portray them well is to write bad sex in fiction… and bag an embarassing award for it.
