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Why do women fake orgasms?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most heterosexual women have faked an orgasm at some point in their life. According to one survey, conducted by the trusty academic journal Cosmopolitan, 67% of women have pretended to climax.

There are lots of obvious reasons why women faux-gasm – they don’t want to hurt their partners feelings, for example, or they’re just tired and want to go to sleep. However, according to a study just published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior another big factor is feeling squeamish about using the C-word. Researchers found that women who “strongly agreed that they find it easy to use words like ‘clitoris’ to talk about sex were less likely to fake orgasms than those who strongly disagree”. The study concluded that gender norms and “sexual double standards continue to limit female sexual expression, inhibiting some women’s sexual communication and in particular their comfort level in receiving or asking for sexual pleasure”.

It’s not exactly new news that there is a sexual double standard. However this study is a jarring reminder of just how much shame is still attached to female desire, and how many women have internalized that shame. “Clitoris” shouldn’t be a dirty word and yet people still tiptoe around it as if the mere mention of something that exists purely for female pleasure is obscene.

Society’s fear of the clitoris has ramifications far beyond the bedroom. Earlier this year, for example, the UK had its first conviction for female genital mutilation. Writing in the Guardian, Lucy McCormick noted that “one of the things that stands out from the news reports of that case is how oddly furtive they were about communicating the key facts,” in particular their avoidance of the word clitoris. As McCormick noted: “Young girls around the world are suffering horrendous mutilation because of a deep-rooted cultural fear of female pleasure, and the same fear is preventing us from even articulating the problem.”

So let’s stop being so afraid of the clitoris shall we? That was obviously a rhetorical question; the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes.

Trump administration argues abortion isn’t a human right

The war on abortion and access to birth control that is currently being waged in America is also, of course, about the regulation of female pleasure; under patriarchy women exist purely to service men and to reproduce. On Monday Alex Azar, the US health and human services secretary, told the UN General Assembly that abortion isn’t a human right. “We do not support references to ambiguous terms and expressions such as ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ in UN documents, because they can undermine the critical role of the family and promote practices like abortion,” he said. Azar, by the way, is a deeply religious Orthodox Christian who has been complicit in the Trump’s administrations attacks on Medicaid and Obamacare. He is, in short, a morally-bankrupt religious zealot who hates women and wants to stamp out affordable health care. No wonder Trump picked him as his health secretary.

Mexico’s Oaxaca state decriminalizes abortion

In slightly better reproductive rights news, Oaxaca has become the second jurisdiction in Mexico to decriminalize abortion, following Mexico City.

New South Wales decriminalizes abortion

Australia’s most populous state also joined the 21st century this week, finally overturning a 119-year-old law banning abortion.

Woman who started French #MeToo fined for defamation

Journalist Sandra Muller has been ordered to pay thousands of euros in damages to Eric Brion, a TV executive she accused of sexual harassment. Brion admits that he made inappropriate remarks to Muller but says her accusations wrongly portrayed him as a sex offender and ruined his career. Muller has called the ruling “a message to shut up” and will be appealing.

Women could boost Malaysia’s economy

“If all economic barriers are removed for women in Malaysia, the country’s income per capita could grow by 26.2%,” according to the World Bank.

Saudi Arabia loosens dress code for tourists

Foreign women will no longer have to wear an abaya (a loose robe), but will still have to dress modestly. The relaxed dress code is part of a wider tourism push and attempts by the kingdom to modernize its image. While these changes are encouraging, Saudi Arabia still very much practices a system of gender apartheid. Some of its most prominent female activists are also still in jail, and have reportedly been tortured.

Men are reporting women on Tinder for turning them down

Lauren Vinopal didn’t want to go on a second date with a guy she met on Tinder. She turned him down nicely, saying she didn’t want to lead him on. In response he sent her harassing messages and then got her banned from platform. Writing in Mel Magazine, Vinopal notes she’s not the only “woman to have been kicked off the app for no other reason than I rejected the wrong guy.” Apparently getting women booted off dating apps is an increasingly popular strategy for guys who can’t deal with rejection.

Weekend long read: Stories About My Brother

Prachi Gupta’s devastating essay about her brother Yush’s death is a harrowing account of how harmful toxic masculinity can be for men. “I believe even more intensely than ever that rigid gender roles harm men, too, and the effects can be deadly,” Gupta writes.

There’s now a helpline for adults who are angry with Greta Thunberg

An inordinate number of middle-aged men seem to be going out of their minds because a teenage girl doesn’t want the world to collapse. In response to the rise of Greta Derangement Syndrome a satirist has created The Greta Thunberg Helpline, “for adults angry at a child.” Let’s hope that Trump gives it a call sometime.