Women are routinely faking orgasms, and not just in the middle of a deli for comedic purposes. New research says women often fake it because they're insecure and fear intimacy, not because they're trying to flatter their partner.


Erin Cooper of Temple University found that 60% of women have faked orgasms during oral sex or intercourse, LiveScience reports. While the practice is common, Cooper laments that few researchers have studied it:

"This is something that we talk about happening in popular culture, in the movies and magazines ... We know that this is pretty prevalent in our culture, but we don't know much about it from a scientific standpoint. That to me is a real catastrophe."


Cooper interviewed 366 orgasm-faking females between the ages of 18 and 32. Many of these enthusiasts said they pretended they were in ecstasy because they were afraid of being intimate with their partner, both emotionally and sexually. Another popular explanation was that the women felt embarrassed by their inability to orgasm. Others said if they weren't enjoying the sexual experience, they'd fake it just to get it over with.

Yet not every reason was negative. A few women said they find faking orgasms enjoyable. Cooper explains:

"This small subset of women who are faking orgasm for the purposes of increasing their own arousal, actually have higher levels of sexual satisfaction ... So, maybe we should not be questioning their strategy; it's one of many tools in their toolboxes for having a positive sexual experience."

G/O Media may get a commission Subscribe and Get Your First Bag Free Promo Code AtlasCoffeeDay20

Still, for most women it seemed faking orgasms was a symptom of feeling disconnected from themselves or their partners. Cooper says, "They are having a hard time across the board, and may be very much in need of intervention to help them out in another domain." In pop culture, women are usually shown faking it for the benefit of a partner who's hilariously bad in bed. It isn't surprising that Hollywood portrays simulated orgasms as a way to keep men happy, but in real life it has more to do with what's going on in the woman's head.

Uncovering The Truth: Why Women "Fake It" [LiveScience]