Shire Hell by British author Rachel Johnson is about a couple who leave the urban jungle for the perceived peace of the countryside. (Penguin)

It's an honour perhaps best kept under the covers, for which writer Rachel Johnson has accepted graciously: the laureate of bad sex.

The U.K. author edged such other literary luminaries as Russell Banks, Paul Coehlo, Isabel Fonseca and John Updike to capture Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize for 2008.

Although, Updike was singled out for another prize — a lifetime achievement award from the judges, the editors of Literary Review magazine. The 76-year-old American writer had made it to the shortlist four times in the prize's 16-year history.

"Good sex or bad sex, he has kept us entertained for many years," they said in a statement Tuesday.

As for Johnson, the judges were gleefully scornful.

"All the passages this year are equally awful, but Rachel Johnson's struck us because of the mixture of cliche and euphemism. There were a couple of really bad animal metaphors in there," said the statement.

In her novel Shire Hell, her male protagonist's tongue is likened to "a cat lapping up a dish of cream so as not to miss a single drop." There are also references to moths in other sex scenes.

Johnson accepted the prize in London with good humour: "I always wanted to win a literary award."

Johnson also referenced previous winners, including acclaimed authors such as Sebastian Faulks, Tom Wolfe and the late Norman Mailer, who captured last year's prized posthumously.

"The truth is that anyone who writes sex scenes has [the award] at the back of their mind," she said. "It makes you even more self-conscious when you're lubricating your book with sex."

Mailer was given the award for his vivid description of Adolf Hitler's conception in his novel The Castle in the Forest.

Updike was not present to accept his lifetime achievement award.

He was nominated this year for what the judges described as a "gratuitous" oral sex scene The Widows of Eastwick.