London - When his girlfriend began to initiate lovemaking one night, Tom Stevenson wasn’t really in the mood.
He was tired and would have preferred an early night. Reluctant to disappoint, though, Tom accepted her advances and hoped her passion would ignite his flagging desire. He quickly realised it wasn’t working, but rather than tell her he wanted to stop, he chose a more extreme course of action.
“I faked an orgasm,” Tom, an account executive, admits. “I have quite a high sex drive, so am usually in the mood – but this time I was tired.
“It was the first time I’d ever faked it and it felt like a strange thing to do, but it was the only way I could think to bring things to an end without hurting her feelings.”
Who can forget the famous scene in the film When Harry Met Sally when Sally brings a café to a standstill as she pretends to have an orgasm to prove that men can’t tell the difference between true ecstasy and phony passion?
Significantly, you don’t see Harry following suit, perhaps because until now it’s always been assumed that men never feign orgasm.
However, a new book by a Harvard urology professor suggests that increasing numbers of men are – like Tom – faking it.
Dr Abraham Morgentaler’s findings are backed up by a recent study from the University of Kansas in which a quarter of men admitted faking orgasms.
Meanwhile, men’s website Askmen.com’s survey last year of 2 000 men found that 34 percent admitted faking it, up from 17 percent in 2010.
Shattering the myth that men never simulate a climax, Morgentaler’s book Why Men Fake It: The Totally Unexpected Truth About Men And Sex – which draws on his 25 years of experience treating men’s sexual problems – reveals some other surprising truths.
Morgentaler claims men aren’t always “up for it”, as is commonly assumed, but often feel compelled to perform. “Believe it or not, sometimes it is the man who declines an invitation for sex,” he says.
Tom agrees it’s taboo for men to admit when they aren’t in the mood for intimacy.
“While it’s okay for a woman to say she’s too tired to make love, or has a headache – in fact it’s so common there are jokes about it – it’s not acceptable for men,” he says.
“The image is that men are always up for sex, which makes you feel under pressure to perform even when you don’t want to.”
Secondly, men aren’t selfish lovers concerned only with their own pleasure – as is so often depicted in films and books. According to Morgentaler, they are, in fact, often more concerned with wanting to please their partners than themselves – and that’s a key reason why men pretend to climax. By contrast, research suggests, women tend to fake orgasms to stop partners straying. One US study, for example, found that “women who perceived a higher risk of partner infidelity were more likely to report pretending orgasm”.
Morgentaler says: “Most men who fake it do so because they want their partners to feel good about the encounter. In their minds, it’s actually a form of kindness. In a way, they’re letting the other person know that they’ve done a good job.”
This is certainly something Tom, 25, can identify with. Of the time he faked it with a former girlfriend, he says: “Once we’d started making love, I worried that she’d take it personally and be upset if I said I wanted to stop.
“The only way I could see to resolve the situation was to fake an orgasm. It worked. She felt happy, and I got to go to sleep quicker.”
There is, of course, one rather delicate question that needs answering: Just how do men fake an orgasm?
Given the very obvious result when a man climaxes, surely it’s impossible to disguise if he doesn’t ejaculate?
In his case, Tom says that as he was using a condom, it wasn’t difficult to hide the truth. But even in unprotected sex, it seems, most women don’t notice so long as the man makes a sufficiently convincing display of passion.
Feedback from Morgentaler’s patients suggests that in the heat of the moment they are too caught up in their own pleasure and produce enough natural secretions of their own to realise anything is amiss. – Daily Mail