More than a quarter of the men surveyed in two recent studies have faked an orgasm at least once. So how do they do it?

People often assume it’s virtually impossible for men to fake orgasms since it means pretending to ejaculate too. Guys were asked to give away their secrets by psychologists at the University of Kansas. Seventy-eight percent said they acted out an orgasm.

Harder, faster...
Men moaned, albeit less often than women, when they were faking it. They relied on body movements like thrusting harder and faster or clenching their muscles as if they were about to come. Others simply acted like they were spent or tired. A few guys simply told their partner “I’m coming baby, I’m coming!”

Theatrics
While it’s plausible that he can fake his O’s, can he really pretend to ejaculate? By all accounts it’s pretty difficult. So as a guy you’ve got to have a work-around – faking it in a condom.

“I grunted and then acted spent. Then I disposed of the jimmy-hat before she could get a good look at it,” said one man.

He’s not alone. Sixteen percent of male bluffers in the Kansas study resorted to quickly removing, discarding, or hiding their condom to cover their evidence of faking it.

The number one reason why men put on the extra theatrics is because they didn't think they'd make a climax because they were too drunk, it was taking to long, or they'd already come that day. Other reasons given by men were that they wanted sex to end because they were tired or they didn’t want to hurt their partner’s feelings.

Sex = intercourse = orgasm
Both men and women are most likely to fake their orgasms when having sexual intercourse and not during other forms of sex. Pretenders tend to have a fixed view of sex, say the study’s authors. They think sex means intercourse, and intercourse should end in orgasms all round. This makes them feel under pressure to climax.

Some people feel sex is always supposed to follow the same script: ‘she orgasms, then he orgasms, then sex is over’. This makes women think they have to pretend to orgasm so their partner can take his turn to climax. Some 20 percent of women said they bluffed it for this very reason. And a few of them passed up the real chance to come in order to fake it at the right time.

In the end, the authors point out both men and women feel pressured to show pleasure to keep their partners happy. And it’s this cliched script for sex that keeps people faking it instead of working together for the real thing.

Photo: Flickr/Gregg O’Connell