Like many before him, Iain Hollingshead's first-time effort resulted in some "bad sex."

The British author's debut novel Twenty Something earned him the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award Wednesday in London.

Hollingshead, 25, defeated several established literary figures — including Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell, bestseller Mark Haddon, literary maverick Thomas Pynchon and satirist Will Self — for the prize, given by the editors of Literary Review magazine in recognition of "the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel."

Hollingshead caught the judges' eye by evoking "a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles." His description of "bulging trousers" sealed the win, the judges said.

"Because Hollingshead is a first-time writer, we wished to discourage him from further attempts," the judges said in a statement. "Heavyweights like Thomas Pynchon and Will Self are beyond help at this point."

'Mixed metaphors, embarrassing fumbling'

Hollingshead, the youngest author to win the prize, graciously received his award from rocker Courtney Love at a London ceremony.

"I hope to win it every year," said Hollingshead, who was presented with a statuette and a bottle of champagne.

Now in its 14th year, the award was established by the Literary Review to celebrate cringe-worthy erotic writing.

"It's mixed metaphors, embarrassing fumbling. It's the redundancy of the scene in an otherwise good novel," said assistant editor Philip Womack.

Pynchon's long-awaited, 1,000-page novel, Against the Day, was nominated for a scene involving a spaniel that ends: "Reader, she bit him."

Haddon was shortlisted for his description of rapture in his latest novel, A Spot of Bother, which also has been nominated for Britain's Costa Award for most enjoyable book of the year. The offending passage reads: "Images went off in her head like little fireworks. The smell of coconut. Brass firedogs."

With files from the Associated Press