De jaarlijkse prijs van Literary Review voor ’the year’s most outstandingly awful scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel’ gaat dit jaar naar twee schrijvers; Didier Decoin en John Harvey. De jury van de Bad Sex in Fiction Award kwam er niet uit. Na uren overleg konden ze nog altijd geen winnaar aanwijzen: ‘We tried voting, but it didn’t work. We tried again. Ultimately there was no separating the winners.’

Uit The Office of Gardens and Ponds van Decoin:

Katsuro moaned as a bulge formed beneath the material of his kimono, a bulge that Miyuki seized, kneaded, massaged, squashed and crushed. With the fondling, Katsuro’s penis and testicles became one single mound that rolled around beneath the grip of her hand. Miyuki felt as though she was manipulating a small monkey that was curling up its paws.

Uit Pax van Harvey:

She was burning hot and the heat was in him. He looked down on her perfect black slenderness. Her eyes were ravenous. Like his own they were fire and desire. More than torrid, more than tropical: they two were riding the Equator. They embraced as if with violent holding they could weld the two of them one.

Op de shortlist stonden ook scènes van Mary Costello (He clung to her, crying, and then made love to her and went far inside her and she begged him to go deeper and, no longer afraid of injuring her, he went deep in mind and body, among crowded organ cavities, past the contours of her lungs and liver, and, shimmying past her heart, he felt her perfection), Elizabeth Gilbert (Then I screamed as though I were being run over by a train, and that long arm of his was reaching up again to palm my mouth, and I bit into his hand the way a wounded soldier bites on a bullet.) en Dominic Smith (The actual lovemaking was a series of cryptic clues and concealed pleasures. A sensual treasure hunt. She asked for something, then changed her mind. He made adjustments and calibrations, awaited further instruction.)