Faking it, according to our hackneyed sexual folklore, is what men do on the streets and women do in the sheets. But if you’ve ever had sex as a man or with one, chances are you’ve found out that’s not entirely true. In a 2010 University of Kansas study, 25% of men surveyed were found to have faked an orgasm. On average, that means men are more likely to fake an orgasm than inflate their height on a dating site (22% according to a Cornell/WM study) or inflate their salaries in an online dating profile (most add 20%, according to OkCupid’s own stats analysis).  So what are the reasons that men give for pulling a Meg Ryan? According to the Kansas study, the primary reason men fake orgasm is actually to avoid upsetting the person with whom they are having sex when it turns out they can’t orgasm at all. Men give several reasons for why they can’t, when they can’t (which are similar to what women say when surveyed): exhaustion, stress, alcohol or other drug consumption. Throw performance anxiety and erectile dysfunction into the mix and a man’s inability to orgasm has far more to do with them than it does with you.  We presume that men are simpler sexual machines than women, and that it’s more straightforward to tell if men are faking it because we – and many men – conflate orgasm and ejaculation. That may explain why 66% of men think their partners can tell that they’re on the make-believe-heave, while only 25% of women believe their partners know they fake it, according to Hugo Mialon’s 2010 survey, The Economics of Faking Ecstasy.  And yet it turns out there are some pretty creative ways that a man can faux-gasm. According to Richard Herring’s 2002 book, Talking Cock, they include secretly spitting on your partner while doing it doggy-style and whipping off a dry condom before your partner had a chance to inspect its salubrious contents. (Incidentally, Herring also found that 34% of men had faked it.) Given the perception that it’s harder for men to pull a fake one off and do it well, there’s probably also a greater chance you’ll be believed. And I speak from experience.  The first time I discovered that men could put it on was revelatory to me, despite being a seasoned sex writer. A new boyfriend and I decided to make some extra cash by having sex for private show. It turned out to be a showdown – me and the boyfriend versus the nimble-fingered young voyeur who was intent on touching rather than just looking at us. The best way that my guy could think to end the action while making sure we still got paid was to hurtle himself into a groin-quaking climax. It was so convincing that I found myself checking there was indeed a wet patch for weeks afterwards.  Of course, the most common reason to pull a fake one off isn’t to send a dodgy punter packing, but to avoid upsetting one’s partner – according to 58% of men surveyed by the Kansas study. But that figure has little to do with poor partner technique or lack of attractiveness; if women are hindered from climax by too little foreplay or direct stimulation, and the myth it can’t always happen, men are hindered by the “fantasy model for sex”, in which a man is “always interested and always ready”, which in turn drives men to fake it because they feel orgasm is either unlikely or taking too long. That fear of not climaxing quickly enough even trumps the anxiety experienced by those with genuine, proven erectile dysfunction issues, according to that same study out of Kansas.  The broader question though, shouldn’t be why men fake it – or indeed why anyone does – but why we care so much about faking it at all. The focus, British experts Dr Petra Boyton and Dr Henry Strick said when I interviewed them about this issue, should be on authentic sexual pleasure – and orgasms, fake or real, are not the key measure of that. If pleasure is the answer, orgasm doesn’t necessarily need to be part of the question.  And yet, like we conflate ejaculation and orgasm, we routinely conflate pleasure and orgasm, tying it with the notion of authentic vs inauthentic sexual performance, in which orgasm is supposedly the proof that the sexual act was “real”. Yet if one of the chief aims of sex is to make your partner feel good, and not having an orgasm makes him or her feel bad, perhaps faking it is merely one of those occasional sexually altruistic gestures that could help preserve long-term happiness when there isn’t always time to get sex “just right”.  And let’s face it: there are enough conspiracy theories relating to our sexual motives without getting paranoid about our orgasmic or anorgasmic capacities. Ultimately, everyone wants to feel good with the person they are getting into bed with. The Big O might certainly help. But make it the only letter in a prescription for sexual happiness, and we won’t be able to read one another at all.
Nichi Hodgson: We presume that men are simple sexual machines and that, when it comes to sex, their pleasure is something we can see. The truth is more complicated