Hello, wonderful readers. I am taking a break from Misseducated in the coming weeks as I focus on The Intimacy Journal, which will be launching on Kickstarter very soon. I can’t wait for you to get your hands on a copy! 💌 ✍️
Introduction 🎬
“I’ve been faking it for years!” — My grandmother.
The other day, I had four pretty sensational orgasms with a male partner. Yet for many years, I found sex boring. I’d often look up at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over. I’ve never faked a whole orgasm, but sometimes I shout a little louder or say dirty things to help get my partner over the edge. In fact, 55% of women (The Hite Report) have faked an orgasm at least once in their lives. In this article, we’ll explore the culture of fake orgasms, how to do it, and how to have tough conversations with your partner so you can get the real sexual pleasure you deserve.
Get ready, stay ready! 🥳
Why do we fake orgasms? 🪅
According to these two studies, the most common reasons are the following, and in any combination:
* To avoid conflict and not hurt a partner’s feelings (chosen by 78% of respondents).
* To please our partner (chosen by 47% of respondents) and gain positive consequences, like being seen as good in bed.
* To avoid feeling bad that we’re not orgasming, or we accept that orgasming is unlikely for us.
* Feeling tired, bored with the sex (lol), wanting to end intercourse, or being intoxicated.
* Because we hope it will turn us on more.
* Because we may falsely believe that females need to orgasm in order for our (male) partners to feel satisfied and receive pleasure. Interestingly, women who have anti-feminist values are more likely to fake female orgasms than others.
Is it more common for women than men to fake it? 🕺
Yes, in heterosexual partnerships, women fake orgasms more than men, but a significant number of men do it too (who knows how they can pretend to ejaculate). In one study, about 25% of men and 50% of women admitted to faking orgasms overall, while 28% of men and 67% of women specifically said they faked orgasm during penile-vaginal intercourse.
Why should you never fake an orgasm? 🤐
“Liar, liar, pants on fire. Except your underpants won’t be on fire, because your pleasure-ometer will be stuck at zero.” — Tash Doherty
As far as I’m concerned, faking an orgasm is a form of lying, and it is a sexual sin. I liken it to “The Spelling Test Analogy.” Imagine you give your partner a spelling test. If they get 10/10 correct on this spelling test, you get 5 of the most earth-shattering orgasms you’ve ever had in your life. You read out each word, and this is how he spells them:
* Anatomie
* Dalightful
* Fewshia
* Acommodate
* Naushous
* Liason
* Hapy
* Delishous
* Apertment
* Bare with me
First of all, you shouldn’t be dating a guy who can’t spell “happy.” Still, by faking it, you score your partner 10/10 on this test, when they actually got 0! Now they have no opportunity to learn, and you also have no real orgasms that you deserve. And if you say something like, “Well, I feel bad for him. Every woman is different. That’s too much for him to learn how to spell my words,” please, for the love of God, scrape your self-esteem off the floor and remember that spelling and satisfying a woman are both useful skills that are going to serve this person in many areas of their life.
Share “The Spelling Test Analogy” 🤭
It’s time to stop doing a disservice to yourself, every other female out there, and all his partners that will come after you (or not come, because you have left them with a fundamental misunderstanding of how the female body works).
How can I stop faking orgasms and ask for what I want?
“The clearer we are about what we want, the more likely it is that we’ll get it.” — Marshall Rosenberg, Non-Violent Communication.
Your partner is not a mind reader or a wizard after all, so they’ll need directions so they can get to the destination of their dreams: your pleasure.
Asking for what you want is one of the core principles on your journey to becoming shamelessly sexy. Firstly, it’s important to understand what you want and how you define success in your sex life. Do you want to orgasm every time you’re with your partner, or multiple times even? Are there role-plays, scenarios, or techniques you would like to try? Do you want to try anal or different sex positions? If your partner is not willing to use toys or they are not willing to experiment with you, you may need to be prepared to walk away from this relationship.
Secondly, identify the conditions you would need to achieve this. For example, to orgasm, do you need silence? Do you need to lie on your back with no time pressure, or would you prefer to have a countdown clock? Do you need to not be tired? If you’re not sure where to start, try Dr. Laurie Mintz’s solution: transfer the techniques that you use to pleasure yourself to your sexual activities with your partner. That includes your favorite setting on your vibrator, which you should bring to your partner’s house next time.
Thirdly, you have to believe that you deserve what you want. If your partner ever makes you feel bad about wanting to bring sex toys into your foreplay, stop right there and seriously consider whether this is a healthy relationship for you to be in. Don’t waste your time with a person who belittles you to avoid addressing their own insecurities and inadequacies. Normal men want to please women.
How else can I talk this through with my partner without hurting their ego?
* Ask to experiment with other things that don’t involve penetrative sex. A male partner may get off simply by watching you get off for real.
* Change his perspective on sex toys. As Dr. Laurie Mintz states, sex toys are like power tools. They don’t replace men; they just help you get the job done faster.
* Ask for what would make your life awesome. As Non-Violent Communication suggests, “Making requests in clear, positive, concrete language reveals what we really want.” Rather than tell your partner, “I don’t really like that,” make a specific request that they can take action on, like, “Could you eat me out for ten minutes before we have sex? Here is my vibrator, and this is my favorite setting. This is how you can help me have an orgasm by using it.” Then demonstrate specific hand movements to him.
* Be honest and patient. If your male partner wants you to orgasm, he’s going to need to work for that. If you are tired and want sex to end, it is perfectly acceptable to call it off and let the man come at another point in time. If they’re getting frustrated or discouraged, try to improve their mindset. Share that pleasuring you is a practice that your partner can learn and improve at over time (inspired by Heidi Grant Halvorson’s talk). Also, remember that it’s not your job to make him come every time you have sex, either.
* Get the facts straight. As I wrote about in How to Achieve Orgasm Equality (one of my top posts), only 18.4% of women can orgasm from penetration alone, which is the sexual minority. This means that the vast majority of us can’t, which includes me, by the way. Instead, we need lots of the correct kind of clitoral stimulation. There is a large orgasm gap in heterosexual couples that doesn’t exist for gay or lesbian couples. In heterosexual relationships, male pleasure is prioritized for a variety of reasons. For example, we limit the definition of “sex” to describe a penis entering a vagina, leaving out oral sex and bundling the beginning stuff into “foreplay”, which is actually THE MAIN COURSE for most women.
Save this checklist for later 🩵
The Truth Of The Matter 🍷
If I’ve been faking for a long time, how do I tell my partner the truth? What should I say? 🤥
This is about you reclaiming your right to pleasure more than anything else. Being honest and apologizing goes a long way. First, pick out some examples of when you faked it when you were genuinely tired, and admit to your partner that you don’t want to do that again. Your partner’s reaction will probably depend on their level of emotional intelligence. Here are two scenarios:
* Your partner is emotionally intelligent, cares about your sexual needs, and is genuinely open to feedback. First, admit to them that they’re going to feel disappointed with what you’re about to tell them, and maybe a bit embarrassed. Then blame yourself, at least in part, by stating that you learned to fake orgasms to please your shitty ex-boyfriend (whoever he was) or that you learned it from porn. Tell your partner that you’re now unlearning this behavior, and you’re sorry for lying to them. Share that you know that having a happy sex life is important for your wellness and the long-term success of your relationship, which is why you’re sharing this now. Hopefully, they will be receptive yet disappointed, but ultimately motivated to relearn your pleasure together, after you emphasize that you need their help.
“In my experience as an educator and a therapist, most men…actually want to please women and are happy for information on how to do that.”
— Dr. Laurie Mintz, Becoming Cliterate.
* Your partner is not emotionally intelligent and doesn’t listen to you. I’ve been there. Some dudes genuinely believe their dick has magical powers. They’ll respond to your concerns like: “Well, you enjoyed it so many times before. Why are you lying to me now?” How nice of him to try to wear your self-esteem down, too. It may take you a while to realize it, but this kind of partner will never truly care about or meet your long-term needs. It may be time to call it off and find a partner who cares about pleasuring you.
What if I’ve never had a real orgasm? How do I even know what’s real? 🥴
This is why faking orgasms is wrong: it dissociates us from what our bodies actually like. If you’re in this situation, master how to pleasure yourself first, and keep a sex journal. Buy some toys you like if you don’t already have any, like a bullet vibrator, the Vesper, the Lioness, or the Rechargeable Magic Wand. Again, foreplay is the main course for many women, and most of us cannot orgasm through penetration alone. Once you master how to pleasure yourself, transfer your techniques to partnered sex.
How do I know when I’ve had an orgasm? 👀
That’s a great question. For me, my orgasms are so intense that I just know when I’ve had one and when I haven’t. If you’re experiencing a lot of pleasure, take your time with your partner and keep going until you reach a defined climax. For me, it’s a very distinctive 15-second window where I basically lose control of my body. After I’ve had an orgasm, my vagina also pulsates on its own for another 30 seconds or so. While I can’t guarantee that will happen for you, the goal is to get familiar enough with your own body so you know when you’ve had one.
That being said, anorgasmia is a medical condition related to sexual dysfunction whereby you can’t orgasm for a bunch of potential reasons. Be sure to see a doctor if you genuinely can’t orgasm, and check out research by Dr Charlene Muehlenhard and The Journal of Sex Research to learn more. Even forums like Reddit can be helpful, as well as tools like Oh My God Yes (OMGYes).
Why does society expect women to perform pleasure? 🎭
Mostly because of porn, but this is not porn’s fault. Pornography is just entertainment. It’s acting, i.e., people f*****g in a studio. I am pro porn. The problem is that people mistake porn for sex education, attempting to bridge a gap that porn was never meant to close. Most Pornhub content was designed for the male gaze, creating the expectation that we females behave like porn actresses during sex, which we don’t. Cindy Gallop’s Make Love Not Porn is working to counteract this. It’s a website where you can watch couples having “real-world sex”, with all its messiness and imperfections, as opposed to paid porn stars who are performing.
Conclusion 💡
To me, faking orgasms represents the worst parts of being raised as a woman. We grew up being attuned to other people’s needs and the expectation that we should sacrifice our own needs to make everyone else happy. We put our partners’ pleasure first; we know exactly what their orgasms are like, how their body twitches, or how they scrunch up their face, yet we lose touch with ourselves. For our body, we’re not so sure. What is a real, earth-shattering orgasm for us? Or what could it be? Have we had one? We might not know or believe that it is possible. We receive all the praise for being a devoted and caring partner, but none of the pleasure. Instead, we are literal people pleasers. It’s giving trad wife.
I’m advocating here that there’s nothing righteous about any of this. Yes, our male partners are robbed of the knowledge of how to pleasure us. But ultimately, the only person who really loses out in this dynamic is us, the fakers. Our needs matter. We deserve to receive pleasure and enjoy ourselves. We’re here on Earth for a short while, so we must have a very fun time. And the fact that society is terrified of women enjoying themselves is society’s fault, not ours.
Other FAQs 🤨
Does faking an orgasm harm a relationship? 😵
There are obviously worse things you can do in a relationship than fake orgasms, but yes. Without real orgasms during foreplay, faking orgasms means you’re continuously not getting the pleasure you deserve. You’re creating a sexual relationship dynamic that is ultimately unfulfilling and unsatisfying for you. You’ll remain extremely far away from the best sex of your life or any meaningful sexual satisfaction.
Will my partner be able to tell if I’m faking? 🫣
Yes. Your partner may already know when you are faking or at least suspect it. It’s far better to admit to the orgasms you’ve faked now (read above about telling the truth), so you can reprogram your sex life together and learn together how to prioritize your pleasure.
Is faking an orgasm normal, or does it mean something is wrong? 😑
Faking orgasms is common among women, but that does not mean it should be normal. What should be normal is that women who date and have sex with men should receive lots of pleasure. If you are faking it, not climaxing regularly, and you would like to have more pleasure, then something is wrong, and your existing sex dynamic with your partner is not serving you.
Disregarding everything you’ve just shared, how can I fake an orgasm? 👻
Once you’re having sexual intercourse, start hyperventilating and whining like a constipated donkey with full “Ee-ow, Ee-ow” sounds. Scrunch up your face like you’re sitting on the toilet after a spicy food adventure gone wrong. Continue all this nonsense for five minutes until you scream the house down. All your partner’s neighbors must hear you. I remember that a guy in my fraternity in college was dating a girl, and we heard her. All the time. I remember her screaming, but I don’t even remember her name. That’s your goal.
Sending love,
Tash 💌 ✍️
p.s. Stay tuned for an update about The Intimacy Journal!
More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️
Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.substack.com/subscribe
