The Worst Sentences in Erotic Writing: A Dive into the Dubious Delights of Bad Writing

It's not uncommon for any book to include a few sentences that, while intended to enchant and entice, instead end up battering the reader with a mélange of overwrought imagination and poorly edited prose. In the realm of erotic literature, this phenomenon is particularly noteworthy. From Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp to the more familiar It was a dark and stormy night...—once the hallmark of a stale literary tradition—the following sentences illustrate the often laughable, occasionally cringe-worthy, and undeniably memorable worst sentences ever read in a book.

Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp

Major Victor Cornwall and Major Arthur St John Trevelyan's Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp provides us with a particularly egregious example of poor writing in erotic literature. The sentence in question is a profoundly unoriginal and tasteless depiction of coitus:

“Empty my tanks” I’d begged breathlessly as once more she began drawing me deep inside her pleasure cave. Her vaginal ratchet moved in concertina-like waves slowly chugging my organ as a boa constrictor swallows its prey. Soon I was locked in balls deep ready to be ground down by the enamelled pepper mill within her.

The use of a boa constrictor to describe a woman's pelvic muscles and the grotesque imagery surrounding the protagonist being "ground down" like prey is a nadir of graphic and poorly chosen metaphors. If there were any lingering doubts that bad writing in the realm of erotic literature can surpass the previously dubbed worst, this sentence should dispel them.

A Plethora of Pitfalls

Yet the grim reaper of bad writing is not limited to just one work. Another sentence that has garnered its share of ridicule and scorn is from an anonymous piece of erotic writing:

"’Stick it in’ she whispered. I moved up the bed and pushed inside her. Liz squeaked like wet rubber. She grabbed my love-handles and ground her hips against me her eyes black saucers staring into mine as she hooked a yoga-leg onto my shoulder. We went through a medley of our favourite positions. When Liz saw that I was about to shoot my blob of Lo-Cal genetics she turned onto her stomach lifting her arse to get a hand to her clitoris and chase me to an orgasm. She made it just in time.

The absurdity and tense miscellany of this passage, particularly with its use of the term "Lo-Cal genetics," serve as a perfect illustration of how bad writing can often veer into the realms of the ridiculous and nonsensical. The attempt at vividness often comes across as ultimately amateur and contrived.

The Age-Old Culprit: "It was a dark and stormy night..."

But, as Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp and our unnamed erotic piece so artfully demonstrate, bad writing is not exclusive to a particular genre. Even Charles Dickens, a master of the literary arts, could not escape the ignominy of falling into this trap—albeit in a slightly more literary context:

“It was a dark and stormy night...”

This phrase, famously employed in the opening of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, has become so cliché that it is now often used almost in jest to describe anything predictable or trite. However, Snoopy, the beloved character from the Peanuts comic strip, still gets away with the evil ode, proving that sometimes, clichés persevere, and perhaps, this is one where overuse has made it a quaint, albeit offensive, part of literary history.

The Worst Sentences in Erotic Writing is a collection of the most egregious examples of bad writing found in a variety of literary works. From mechanical and grotesque descriptions of intimate acts to the overwrought and clichéd phrases often used to describe the passage of time, these sentences showcase the fascinating—and sometimes, frankly, gruesome—nature of bad writing. Have you come across any particularly memorable examples of bad writing in literature? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Note: All the sentences used as examples in this article are fictional and for illustrative purposes only. No real copyrighted content is being used to create this article.