The Independent Bath Literature Festival: The Bad Sex Award is ‘idiotic’, says nominee Jonathan Grimwood

Jonathan Grimwood was nominated for the award last year for a sex scene in ‘The Last Banquet’ (John Lawrence)

The Bad Sex Award is “idiotic”, according to one of last year’s nominees.

Jonathan Grimwood was nominated for the mischievous prize, which celebrates the most cringeworthy sex scenes in fiction, for a scene in his debut novel, The Last Banquet.

His book describes the title character, a voracious gourmet called Jean-Marie, sucking brie off the nipple of a wet nurse.

“I think the award is pretty idiotic, actually”, he said at The Independent Bath Literature Festival. “Of the people who get upset about brilliant sex, I slightly think: ‘Have you ever had sex?’”

Of the cheesy scene in question, he said: “I didn’t write it thinking it was erotic. That particular scene for me has very little to do with sex and a lot to do with memory. It’s about trying to recreate something that has already gone.”

The prize, awarded since 1993, has been won by Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and Rachel Johnson among others. Grimwood denied a nomination was on his mind when he sat down to write his sex scenes. “No. It didn’t occur to me at all... The secret to doing it well is liking it.”