Stop faking orgasms: An unapologetic ode to myself
I have 10 solid years of experience in faking orgasms. In fact, when I think about it, I must have faked hundreds. It’s likely I’ve faked more orgasms than experienced real ones… and it’s even more likely that my lovers are blissfully unaware of their debt.
Disclaimer: to my previous lovers reading this: no, you’re not the exception.
To mark the start of a new decade, I am promising myself to never fake another orgasm. For me, this is about reclaiming sex as something I am entitled to enjoy. I want to learn about and explore every intricacy of my wildest desires but also understand that it’s our complexities and individuality as human beings that make us sexy, not the way we orgasm, or pretend to.
Through the years, I have mastered all the techniques of fakery: the overstated lip bite, the excessive clit rubbing, the dramatic bed sheet pulling, the earth-shattering full body vibration (my golden nugget).
And for the grand finale... I’d mould my face into looking like I've been caught mid-sneeze, before letting out the ever-impending, annoyingly loud, melodic, almost hymn-like, elongated moaaaan. Anything on the scale of seagull to dolphin usually does the trick.
It is all performative and has become an embedded part of my sex life. From the beginning, at the curious age of 15, listening to the likes of Britney Spears – I’m a Slave 4 U, I thought I was doing it all exceedingly well – a sex goddess. Looking back now, the reality was that I was forcing myself into the wild and lustful savage my lover expected me to be, simply to feel desired.
I have always thought of myself as a very playful person, who enjoys having sex, but more often that not, there comes a point in the process where I find myself subconsciously camouflaging into a squirming hyena just to stroke the ego of my partner, but what’s in it for me? Sure, the want to feel desired is embedded in us all but I am bored of faking orgasms. It’s weird. I think we should talk about it more... have you ever faked an orgasm?
I put the question to my female Instagram followers using a survey on my story. In many ways, the verdict was reassuring but also quite worrying. Here’s the breakdown of the 48 responses I got:
38 had faked an orgasm (79%)
10 hadn’t (11%)
Admittedly, 18 of the total responses I got were from self-entitled men who took the survey as a joke and thought it would be hilarious to get involved – because, of course, female pleasure is a laughing matter.
This still however left me with 28 women (93%) who admitted to faking it, and only 2 (7%) who said they hadn’t.
My survey led to insightful conversations with women in my life who, to my own comfort, had also faked orgasms. The most common reason seemed to be using fake orgasms as an ending mechanism, one friend told me: “Sometimes it’s because I just know I’m not going to get there, and it’s easier to end it that way.”
Another said, “[it] gives me control to end the sex. They always buy it – because they want to buy it.“
A further common denominator seemed to be that women want to make their male partners feel like they’re doing the “best job” because his contentment makes us feel attractive and wanted.
I guess the point I’m trying to reach is that I don’t think I’m alone in this. As a cis-heterosexual-woman, I feel pressured to put on an act for my male partners in order to feel sexy. And, in a world where we don’t receive adequate sex education and heavily rely on porn for our first insight into the realms of sex, I grew up learning that faking an orgasm was the only way I could sexually satisfy my partner. I mean, how many of you can point to your urethra?
I would be naive to think that an Instagram story sent out into my echo chamber of like-minded followers is enough to paint a true reflection of the [fake] female orgasm. Regardless, this is about me and I have made a promise to myself to start my fake-orgasm recovery:
I want to move away from the ‘cum-ccentric’ sex that I am so used to faking. I want to break free from the teeny tiny box the female orgasm has been shoved into and most importantly, freely express my pleasure in its purest form. Let’s make this clear, just because I didn't come, doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it... and just because he hasn’t come, doesn’t mean we have to continue until he does.
Gone are the miserable days of sleeping with boys who eye roll when I get the condom out, or who cum after 3 minutes before falling asleep. I am worth so much more than that. I am beautiful and sexy and so, so powerful. Now read that sentence again.
I want my sex to be a safe, intimate space, full of open communication, dialogue and excitement for all involved. I want to empower myself to be a real sex goddess. Britney was right about a lot of things, but from now on, I am only a slave to myself.
