My family has always said that I'm the straight-no-chaser kind of chick. Here's a visual. My mom once told me that when I was about three-years-old, we got on a bus and a woman said, "Oh, you're such a pretty little girl." My response? I didn't bashfully smile or hide behind my mother's dress. My immediate reply was an enthusiastic, "And you look like a clown!" (I mean…)
Adding to this instance, my mother has said she's pretty sure that my unapologetic outspokenness has probably made her look pretty rude throughout the years. If she was on one side of the room and I found my way to another, she would interrupt whatever someone was saying, just so she could hear—and perhaps "fix"—what was coming out of my own mouth.
Since I am pretty direct, that's why I don't fully get the point of faking orgasms. Well, let me clarify that. The very few times when I have actually done it, it was because I really wanted to hurry up and get the experience over with while not wanting to flat-out say that during the act itself. But even that comes with its own level of counterproductiveness and dysfunction (more on that in just a sec). But doing it for any other reason than not wanting to intentionally hurt someone's feelings never made sense.
Still, tons of people do it. Although orgasms should not be the goal of sexual activity (we all should embrace the journey just as much as the destination), it definitely should be a part of the experience as much as possible. But according to my findings, a lot of us—men and women alike—come up short in this department. Reportedly, 75-80 percent of women have never had a vaginal orgasm (that's an orgasm from intercourse alone) and 1 in 4 guys (25 percent) claim that they fake orgasms (will act like they came when they didn't) too.
A part of me can't help but wonder if a big part of the reason why the stats are what they are is because more of us are faking it rather than tackling the issue of not climaxing, for whatever the reason might be, head on.
Keeping all of this in mind, if you know that you fake it more often than not (or you highly suspect that your partner does), here are seven solid reasons why you should stop ASAP:
Faking It Isn't Good for Your Physical Health
There are certain proven things that an orgasm is able to do for a woman's health. It reduces stress; increases blood circulation; raises DHEA levels; soothes migraines; improves flexibility; strengthens immunity; boosts oxytocin levels (which bonds you to your partner, lowers levels of pain, and also helps you to sleep better); gives your skin a healthy glow—the list is kinda endless.
And here's the thing—while some of these benefits will happen whether you have an orgasm or not, others will only come your way if the muscles that are in your vagina, uterus, and anus contract and then relax. This means that you can't "fake your way" into all of these things. Some of them have to happen via a genuine orgasmic release.
So, really—why fake it when you could strive for a real orgasm and take your health to new heights?
Faking It Gives Your Partner the Wrong Impression
One time, while sitting in a counseling session with a married couple who were sharing with me the pros and cons of their sex life, the husband had a rather embarrassing a-ha moment. While he was bragging about how well he puts it down, his wife said that one of the things that irritates her is having to use her own spit to make herself wet. W-O-W. As I dug deeper, according to her, her husband rushes foreplay, doesn't like to give oral sex and is one of those bang-bang-bang dudes (they're the worst). To add insult to injury (so to speak), she'd only had an orgasm with one person and it wasn't her husband; it was an ex—an ex that she ended up cheating on her husband with, by the way.
There are sooooo many morals to this particular story, but the one that pertains most to this topic is when you fake an orgasm, you give your partner the impression that they are fully satisfying you sexually when they (probably) aren't. And how can they change or fix anything that they don't know is wrong in the first place?
Faking It Is a Form of Manipulation
Manipulation is evil. Anyone who wants to give pushback on that is probably a manipulative individual. I am firm on what I think about it because it's a cryptic form of trying to control someone. That said, I can't tell you how many wives have bragged to me about how faking orgasms has gotten them a new pair of shoes or convinced their husband to go against his better judgment on a decision.
Mind you, it's not just having sex that accomplished this (which can also be a form of manipulation); it's him believing that his spouse is as into him as he is into her, her waiting until his mind is mud and then asking him to do something he probably wouldn't agree to if he wasn't coming down from his own orgasmic high.
I've read all kinds of reasons why women fake it. One of the top is using it as some form of mind control. Intimacy and manipulation should never be used in the same sentence. It taints the beauty of sex on so many levels. Ugh. Just ugh.
Faking It Oftentimes Reveals Deeper Relationship Issues
If you'll pretend that things are great in the bedroom, what keeps you from pretending in other ways when it comes to you and your man? Although sex really should be treated like the "icing" rather than the "cake" of any relationship, when two people are not sexually fulfilled with one another, it can oftentimes reveal that something else is…not going so well in other areas. Maybe it's a lack of communication, a lack of trust, an innate fear to be totally open and honest—it could be all sorts of things.
Bottom line, pretending to be happy or content in your relationship when you really aren't is doing more harm than good to it. Whether you're pretending inside of the bedroom or outside of it.
Faking It Can Set You Up to Cheat
Some of you might remember a few years back when the whole Ashley Madison drama broke out. You know, when the dating service that specifically catered to married folks or people in exclusive relationships got hacked. Well, one thing that some scientific research discovered was that most of the cheaters fell into two categories—people who were bored or sexually dissatisfied or people who were unhappy in their relationship overall.
I'm not stupid. I know that there are some folks who are totally content with their sex lives with their partner and still they cheat. That's another article for another time. But remember that wife I mentioned earlier who committed infidelity in her marriage with a previous partner who sexually pleased her more than her husband did?
Another downside to faking it is it can have you fantasizing or reminiscing about someone who makes you happier—sexually or otherwise—than your partner does. And, if you feed into that too much, it can set you up to try and turn that fantasy into a reality.
Faking It Might Taint Your Views of Sex Overall
Someone once told me that she's been faking it ever since high school. She is headed towards 50 at this point. You know what else she's told me? She can't understand for the life of her how I enjoy sex, let alone how I've been able to climax. To her, sex is a means to an end and/or something that she gives up because her partner expects it. When I asked her how she learned to fake it (which can also reveal a lot), she first learned by watching porn (I used to work with a porn ministry…lots of porn actors fake it!). She tried it out and it seemed to work with her first partner, so she thought to herself, why fix what isn't broken?
The problem with her philosophy is 1) it's pretty unhealthy to let porn "teach" you anything about sex (kinda like you shouldn't let rom-coms or Disney movies teach you about love) and 2) faking all of your life can profoundly damage your view and experience with intimacy.
Can you imagine going your entire life without having a real bonafide earth-shattering orgasm? Yeah, me neither. But when you fake it all of the time, you put yourself at risk of never knowing what you and your partner are truly capable of. Of what the hype about sex is really all about (and it's totally worth the hype!).
Faking It Is Living a Lie
An ex of mine used to say the funniest thing about faking orgasms—"Faking it is a form of witchcraft." Witchcraft is magic, sorcery and bewitching influence and charm. If you add these definitions to faking it, I guess it all depends on who you're having sex with. Yet, even if witchcraft is up for debate, I will tell you one thing that it is for sure—it's a lie. At the very least, a lie is told in order to give someone the wrong impression; at worst, it's designed to deceive.
Here's something that I find to be interesting about the motive for lying, in general. Some people do it because they don't want to disappoint the person they are lying to. Others do it because they lie so much that falsehoods become their own reality. Others lie because one lie has now snowballed into other lies and they need to save face. Then there are those who lie because the truth makes them feel uncomfortably vulnerable.
I don't know about you, but I can see how all of these could apply to faking orgasms. The irony is that any sex therapist or expert will tell you that unless people (especially women) are willing to be open with their partner and let their walls down, an orgasm will probably never happen for them.
Bottom line—all the lying does is keep things fake and frustrating. In the bedroom and out. My advice to people who fall into this particular category—try telling the truth, to yourself and to your partner. See where that gets you.
It just might set you free in some pretty mind-blowing ways (wink, wink) and make your relationship so much healthier in the process too!
Featured Image by Getty Images.
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Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
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Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
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What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak