Sex. When it’s good, it’s great. The best fun you can have with your clothes off, on, under, through, between... you choose your favourite preposition. So great, in fact, that it’s beyond words. That could be why it’s so difficult to write good sex. Many authors tend to leave it out, preferring to go for the oblique ‘camera angle’ of the moon, exploding fireworks, the pumping, thrusting pistons of a steam engine or two large melons jiggling on a cart. But for those writers brave enough to grasp sex and run with it (takes some doing, believe me,) there are many pitfalls to watch out for. The Antagonist has taken it upon itself to scoop those pieces of writing out of the Bad Sex Pit, wipe them down, give them a cigarette and award them the prestigious Antagonist Bad Sex Award 2008.

So, without any more foreplay, let us thrust into the fray with our first category…

From Blue Zoo, by Simian Hands

‘Bobo grasped the banana tightly in both hairy little hands. Colin, the Howler, beat his chest and leaped from his branch onto Bobo’s back in a cacophony of howls. He reached around and began to tug violently at Bobo’s banana, sending the smaller monkey into paroxysms of screeches. In the ensuing tussle, the monkeys sent the radio, which the zookeeper had absent-mindedly left in the enclosure, crashing to the floor, thus switching it on. As Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s get it on…’ rang seductively around the cage, Colin’s grip loosened and Bobo’s screeches became gasps of monkey pleasure and the two moved as one in the moonlit zoo…’

From Aujourd'hui dans le Jardin de Pleiseur’ by Marcel d’Oignion

‘Quoi?’

‘Oui!’

‘Quoi?!’

‘Oh, Oui!!’

‘Oh, Quoi?!!’

‘Oh, Oui, oui!!!’

‘Quoi, quoi, quoi, quoi??!!!’

‘OH J’ARRIVE!!!!’

From The Black Rose Withereth by Ember l’Estrange

‘Night wove between them, web-like, nebulous, as Darnox moved within her like the very spirit of darkness. Azflex arched her slender back, her white breasts tearing through the thin gossamer of her lace brocade gown. Tiny beads of crimson blood rained down onto her milky neck from the fangs of Darnox. A lone raven cried in the darkness and creaked skyward upon the tendrils of moonlight...’

So, there they lie, prone and spent for your perusal and pleasure. The 2009 awards will include categories for Best Bad Parliamentary Orgy Session Sex, Best Bad Baden Baden Sex and a very short excerpt from the Best Bad Premature Ejaculation No-Sex.