And the Bad Sex Award goes to ...

[impressive]

Norman Mailer:

So Klara turned head to foot, and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth, and took his old battering ram into her lips. Uncle was now as soft as a coil of excrement. She sucked on him nonetheless with an avidity that could come only from the Evil One - that she knew. From there, the impulse had come. So now they both had their heads at the wrong end, and the Evil One was there. He had never been so close before.

The Hound began to come to life. Right in her mouth. It surprised her. Alois had been so limp. But now he was a man again! His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety.

 

[rgraham666]

Gag. http://bestsmileys.com/puking/6.gif

 

[fieryjen]

That truly is the most disturbing description of a sex act I've ever read.

 

[velvetpie]

I can't believe that they paid him money for that tripe!!!

 

[TE999]

Put his Hound in her piety?

BWAHAHAHAHA!

 

[impressive]

Put his Hound in her piety?

BWAHAHAHAHA!

This is one award I never want to win!

 

[_Lynn_]

I have a book called 'Erotic Literature....Twenty-Four Centuries of Sensual Writing'.
It's interesting, yet at the same time, it's hilarious to browse through.
I had to read the one titled "To a Randy Old Woman" ((from 30 bc)) entirely as soon as I caught the lines---

Drooling like the incontinent cow you are.....

Those saggy tits, that shopping-bag
You call a belly, that bony bum, those piano legs?

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

In defense of Mailer, the two "lovers" are Adolf Hitler's future parents. The scene occurs in the late 1800's. Here are a few excerpts from the New York Times book review. (for the entire review, go to: The Castle in the Forest

...

The young Adolf Hitler, his parents, siblings, stepsiblings and extended family are stuck in the sty of their instincts, immediate gratifications, primitive fears and terrors, yet nearly each of them -- the men, especially -- feels that he is living a noble, honorable, admirable life.

...

After (unforgettably described) sex with Adolf's future father, Alois Schicklgruber, Hitler's future mother, Klara Poelzl, experiences a guilt that is ''as heavy as a waterlogged tree."

...

Alois, the pathologically womanizing customs official; Klara, his wife and niece, who hides in the folds of escapist religious piety her instinctive knowledge that she is in fact Alois's daughter; Adolf, whose onanistic sessions are like ''being shot out of his own cannon.'' They are all -- spiritually, emotionally and mentally -- as naked as the day they came into the world. In the case of Adolf, he will defensively transmute his naked helplessness into a perverted egotism: the terrible power that he will wreak on other human beings.

...

Rumple Foreskin

 

[JamesSD]

I actually think that if a sex scene is supposed to be unsexy in terms of the plot, then it's a success if it leaves the reader unsettled, rather than aroused.

I think to be truly bad, a sex scene has to intend to arouse, but end up failing. An example would be the much pulicized excerpts from O'Reiley's books.

 

[neonlyte]

In defense of Mailer, the two "lovers" are Adolf Hitler's future parents. The scene occurs in the late 1800's. Here are a few excerpts from the New York Times book review. (for the entire review, go to: The Castle in the Forest

...

The young Adolf Hitler, his parents, siblings, stepsiblings and extended family are stuck in the sty of their instincts, immediate gratifications, primitive fears and terrors, yet nearly each of them -- the men, especially -- feels that he is living a noble, honorable, admirable life.

...

After (unforgettably described) sex with Adolf's future father, Alois Schicklgruber, Hitler's future mother, Klara Poelzl, experiences a guilt that is ''as heavy as a waterlogged tree."

...

Alois, the pathologically womanizing customs official; Klara, his wife and niece, who hides in the folds of escapist religious piety her instinctive knowledge that she is in fact Alois's daughter; Adolf, whose onanistic sessions are like ''being shot out of his own cannon.'' They are all -- spiritually, emotionally and mentally -- as naked as the day they came into the world. In the case of Adolf, he will defensively transmute his naked helplessness into a perverted egotism: the terrible power that he will wreak on other human beings.

...

Rumple Foreskin

Well thanks Rumple, that explains this line: "His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety." For a moment there, I thought her piety was a euphemism.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Well thanks Rumple, that explains this line: "His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety." For a moment there, I thought her piety was a euphemism.

Neon, first and foremost, I'm not a fan of Mailer. However, to me the language doesn't seem that "off the wall" when you factor in the time frame, setting, and the POV character (Alois).

James, IMHO, you nailed it.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[neonlyte]

Neon, first and foremost, I'm not a fan of Mailer. However, to me the language doesn't seem that "off the wall" when you factor in the time frame, setting, and the POV character (Alois).

Rumple Foreskin

I kind of agree. It is unfair to pull these lines... any lines really... out of contextual framework and present them as an example of 'bad sex'. I've not read Mailer in a long while and I might just be curious enough to go find this and see where it takes me.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I kind of agree. It is unfair to pull these lines... any lines really... out of contextual framework and present them as an example of 'bad sex'. I've not read Mailer in a long while and I might just be curious enough to go find this and see where it takes me.

You are one brave carbon-based life-form, Neon.

If you do give it a read, please pass along your impressions. I haven't read any of his novels since, "The Naked and the Dead." However, I have read the entire NYT review of this one and recommend you do the same before taking the plunge,

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Guest]

yuck

 

[Katyusha]

What a royal turn-on, let me tell you...I'm just ALL kinds of wet now. ::gagging::

 

[TheeGoatPig]

At first I thought htis was about my latest performance in bed, and was wondering who told you about it...

 

[togitc]

Must... resist... urge...


Just the latest?

I'm weak.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I was pretty impressed with that passage, myself. Mailor doesn't write erotic erotica, anyway.

 

[Huckleman2000]

You know, it's passages like that one that just make me avoid the Incest/Taboo category altogether.

 

[cantdog]

We can do lots worse right here on Lit, sadly. It's like the 50 sexiest men award. Really, there are other men sexier; they just are unsufficiently famous to come to the judges' notice. Lord Dragon's Wing is demonstrably capable of much worse than Mailer, but, thank the gods, no one knows of him.

 

[Chantilyvamp]

I know its bad but I cant stop laughing.

 

[FallingToFly]

I still say "I kiked in the dor and camed in her face" takes the cake.

 

[slyc_willie]

If Mailer submitted a story with that scene in it, I have the feeling it would have been rejected on the grounds of bestiality.

I can understand the context in which the passage was written. But describing sex like that is like reimagining a scoop of ice cream based upon where the cow's milk originally came from. It's painful and abstract.

 

[ungenderless]

Oh! I thought this was going to be a thread about ACTUAL bad sex. You know, like "The bad sex award goes to...my ex-wife!". Silly me.

 

[impressive]

Oh! I thought this was going to be a thread about ACTUAL bad sex. You know, like "The bad sex award goes to...my ex-wife!". Silly me.

"Bad" is a tricky word when it comes to sex ... because it's often what you make of it. It's the lack of desire to make it better that makes it bad.