Jonathan Beckman, judge/editor of the Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction Award" writes
an interesting article at FT. My quibble? Firstly, folks are yet again treating sex as if it is somehow a "special case" -- evidence, imo, of subtle attempts at social control. Have you ever seen a "Bad Eating Scenes in Fiction Award"? Or a "Bad Lying Scenes in Fiction Award"? Of course not.
Secondly, Beckman writes:
"Auberon Waugh,
Literary Review’s former editor, founded the prize with crusading purpose. He was genuinely convinced that publishers were encouraging novelists to include sex scenes solely in order to increase sales. The award’s remit was 'to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.'"
I note the judgmental, subjective use of emotive language here. E.g. "crude, tasteless..." are words that sound like Father spoke them when he caught you in the shower after church, as opposed to the intellectually detached language that is preserved for talking about
other literary aspects that, according to an editor or reader, do not work. Don't get me wrong. I'm all about expressing and owning opinions. But when emotionally loaded language is used to do so, I argue that we're no longer in the realm of professional criticism.
An interesting article, but read it with open eyes. When people get angry about sex scenes, they're often getting angry about something else -- something they avoid because they are "better people than that."
More on this soon!
