The Bill O'Reilly Bad Sex Writing Contest

Third place goes to a passage from a classic text about honey, citadels and threaded needles.

Jan 14, 2004 | When men forget their mothers

We were inundated by wonderfully bad sex writing after our call for entries to what we christened "The Bill O'Reilly Bad Sex Writing Contest" (in honor of his 1998 suspense thriller "Those Who Trespass," which is filled with panties and rapidly moving tongues).

The submissions were all worthy of passing along, but in the interest of getting through the day with as few barf-inducing moments as possible, we'll share only a few of the truly egregious erotic passages that, as it were, came to us.

The examples fell into three main groups: classic, pulp and contemporary. The third-place winner, below, is from the classic category and was sent in, graciously, by Nicole McCulloch, who found it in "Tales from the Thousand and One Nights" (Penguin Classics, translated by N.J. Dawood, 1954):

"Ma'aruf cast off his clothes and, climbing into bed, threw himself upon the princess as she lay on her back. He clasped her tight, and she pressed close to him, so that tongue met tongue in that hour when men forget their mothers. He slipped his hands under her armpits and strained her to his breast, squeezing all the honey and setting the dainties face to face. Then, threading the needle, he kindled the match, put it to the priming, and fired the shot. Thus the citadel was breached and the victory won."

Join us tomorrow for the second-place winner, from the pulp bins.

-- Karen Croft

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