Charles at Bad sex award in Dec 2009

"...this year, it was actor Charles Dance. Though clearly his (aging) sex symbol status was why he’d been called upon, in true actor style, after years of smoldering his way through movies like White Mischief, Plenty, and Gosford Park, he bristled at the idea of being a sex symbol. “I don’t have anything to say about that… what does it mean… I mean… I suppose it’s not a bad thing… I suppose you could say, ‘It’s better to be looked over, than overlooked.’” Even though I had collared Dance in the name of reporting, it was rather humiliating to add my number to the throngs of literary lovelies who were mobbing him. London is quite short on devastatingly attractive male writers, or at least ones that would be seen dead at a Bad Sex party, so Charles Dance and Jeremy Irons are to the literary circuit what Robert Pattinson is to the rest of the world.......

The awards have no golden statuette or fat check—only a plaster foot—reminding all writers that they have feet of clay. However, there seems to be something quintessentially British about celebrating the slap and tickle of bad sex, rather than good. Charles Dance was outraged at this suggestion. “Not at all,” he purred. “I think the English like to celebrate good sex. It’s just the Literary Review who’ve got this obsession.” 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/12/02/worst-sex-of-the-year.html

Actor Charles Dance, presented the award but added testily: "I have no experience of bad sex. There is no bad sex with me. Here, you can be in the photograph, it’ll serve you right for asking cheeky questions."

           

with Jonathan Little editor and the prize