Take a bow Nancy Huston, who has bagged this year's infamous Bad Sex in Fiction Award for her novel Infrared.
Infrared is about a photographer who takes infra-red photographs of her lovers during sex. Who doesn't? And it includes the following fist-in-mouth moment:
"In a delirium of restrained desire, I weigh, stroke and lick Kamal's balls, then take his penis in my hands, between my breasts, into my mouth. He sits up, reaches for me and I allow him to explore me in turn. He runs his tongue and lips over my breasts, the back of my neck, my toes, my stomach, the countless treasures between my legs, oh the sheer ecstasy of lips and tongues on genitals, either simultaneously or in alternation, never will I tire of that silvery fluidity, my sex swimming in joy like a fish in water, my self freed of both self and other, the quivering sensation, the carnal pink palpitation that detaches you from all colour and all flesh, making you see only stars, constellations, milky ways, propelling you bodiless and soulless into undulating space where the undulating skies make your non-body undulate ..."
And...
"He runs his tongue and lips over my breasts, the back of my neck, my toes, my stomach, the countless treasures between my legs, oh the sheer ecstasy of lips and tongues on genitals, either simultaneously or in alternation, never will I tire of that silvery fluidity, my sex swimming in joy like a fish in water, my self freed of both self and other, the quivering sensation, the carnal pink palpitation that detaches you from all colour and all flesh, making you see only stars, constellations, milky ways, propelling you bodiless and soulless into undulating space where the undulating skies make your non-body undulate."
The prize is draws attention to the crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and attempts to discourage it.
Picking up the award on Huston's behalf, her publicist said: "I hope this prize will incite thousands of British women to take close-up photos of their lovers' bodies in all states of array and disarray."
Other nominees for this year's prize were Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe, The Adventuress by Nicholas Coleridge, Rare Earth by Paul Mason, Noughties by Ben Masters, The Quiddity of Will Self by Sam Mills, The Divine Comedy by Craig Raine and The Yips by Nicola Barker.
Previous victors have included John Littell, Iain Hollingshead and the late Norman Mailer.
