25 Laughable Sex Scenes From Famous Male Novelists

Granted, sex is very difficult to describe.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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The Great Male Novelist is supposed to stare long and hard at the world and then put down on the page glimmering paragraphs of truth.

What the hell is going on in these sex scenes, then?

Granted, sex is a difficult thing to capture, and when you remove a sex scene from the larger context of its novel (as they are rendered here), moments that work stop working; you wind up with weird jokes (perfect for our purposes).

And not all of these scenes are hilarious because they're inept or purple. Some of the following scenes are laughable because they were written to make the reader laugh (see Nicholson Baker, Philip Roth, and Geoff Dyer).

Don't worry about needing to keep it in your pants. Here are 25 Laughable Sex Scenes From Famous Male Novelists.

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Compiled by Greg Topscher (@gtopscher) and Ross Scarano (@RossScarano)

 

From Tropic of Cancer

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From Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

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From To Have and Have Not

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From Portnoy's Complaint

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From 1Q84

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From Underworld

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From The Fermata

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From Women

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From The Autumn of the Patriarch

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From Money

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From Sexus

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From Seek My Face

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From Falconer

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From Choke

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From Portnoy's Complaint

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From The Godfather

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From Neuromancer

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From House of Holes

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From I Am Charlotte Simmons

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From The Death of Bunny Munro

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From On Chesil Beach

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From Middlesex

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From It

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From Couples

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From Sophie's Choice

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