Why I Fake Orgasms

A new study indicates that many more women fake orgasms than their male partners realize. Erin Bradley on why putting on a little show for the sake of good sex benefits all parties involved.

"Faking It?" crows the headline of a popular news site, followed by "New Sex Study May Rat You Out." Oh my. Guess it's time to purchase some sensible charcoal separates, get Gloria Allred on the horn, and prepare for my day in court.

The charge? Being a bad feminist, a bad lay, and a bad person. An Indiana University survey published this week in the Journal of Sexual Medicine points to a discrepancy in the number of men who believe their partner orgasmed during their last sexual encounter and the number of women confirming that they did, in fact, climax. In other words, a glaring, prison-yard spotlight has been shone down on the large number of women who fake it.

I am one of those women the study implicates: a woman who has, yes, faked an orgasm, and I'm here today to defend myself and anyone else who's ever pulled a fast one on a partner. While pop surveys come and go, a disdain for my fellow co-conspirators that cannot be ignored hums in the background.

In a time when YouTube offers detailed tutorials on everything from "How to Make a Vibrator" to "How to Have Sex in a Car," and Walmart is peddling Astroglide alongside school supplies and Chicken Soup for the Soul, why would anyone willingly choose to bury their head in the nightstand when it comes to faking orgasms? Aren't we better than that, the detractors seem to ask? Smarter? More liberated?

We are. But, first of all, I fake a lot of things. Fandom for a band I've never heard or don't particularly like; enthusiasm for my former employer during a job interview, including the supervisor with the awful French pedicure who made me cry on a semi-weekly basis; nonchalance toward the relative who waits until just before the meal arrives before lighting up and dousing the room with Pall Mall smoke. At the heart of it is non-confrontation, and it's what keeps the wheels of human interaction spinning round and round. Sex, for all its attachments and associations, is just another exchange between two people. Just as sometimes you'll tell off someone who cuts in line in front of you, other times you won't. Likewise, sometimes we'll open up and ask for exactly what we want in bed; other times we'll smile, play along, and let it go. Why make sex into this sacred cow?

By Erin Bradley