After sending out surveys and interviewing hundreds of young women in Florida, Farnaz Kaighobadi, a post-doctoral researcher at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at Columbia University, and his colleagues have found that a high percentage of women fake orgasm as a means for holding onto their man. They have published the results of their study on the university web site.
Kaighobadi and his team sent out surveys to 453 women, ranging in age from 18 to 46, but only to those who had been in relationships for at least six months. Though in actuality, most of the women who responded were Florida college students in their early 20s. In the survey, respondents were asked such questions probing the level of trust in the their relationships and of course whether they had ever faked an orgasm with their partner, and if so, how often.
After reviewing the surveys, the team found a direct correlation between women who were worried about their relationships and those who reported faking orgasms. Those that worried the most about their partner being faithful to them reported the highest rate of faking orgasms.
Kaighobadi suggests in the discussion portion of the study that women appear to fake orgasms as a tool to help strengthen relationships; or conversely, to prevent relationships from weakening if they aren’t able to achieve orgasm during the normal course of their love making.
One troubling issue with the results of the study is that it appears that insecure women are far more likely to fake their outcome in bed, leading to the realization, that for a lot of these women, at least a portion of their love life is based on a fraudulent act. Kaighobadi also notes that answers to other questions on the survey show that such behavior is but one tool many women use to hold on a man they fear may be slipping away.
On the other hand, the team also notes that many women also appear to see faking an orgasm as a way to avoid stressful confrontations due to their partner feeling inadequate. Many respondents reported faking an orgasm simply because they weren’t really all that in the mood at the time and thus found it just easier to pretend.
As behavioral anthropologists, the team also surmised that faking orgasms might be an adaptive technique use by women that has evolved over the centuries as a means to reassure their mates that they were truly fertile and thus likely to produce offspring.