Performing Orgasm: Blurring the ‘Real’ and the ‘Fake’

Abstract

Faking orgasm is a widespread phenomenon. Simulating orgasm is simultaneously presented as both relatively harmless and as a highly sensitive matter, the discovery of which must be handled carefully. Women are encouraged to take responsibility for the problem of faking by identifying their own ‘insecurities’ about orgasm, protect their partners from feeling like ‘lousy lovers’, and to ‘curb’ the self-defeating practice of faking and pursue authentic orgasms. Faking it, then, requires work. There is work involved in putting on an ‘Oscar-worthy performance’, and work involved in confessing to this performance and managing the emotional reactions of partners to this news. This chapter builds on ideas about the labour required to orgasm by considering the idea that ‘faking’ or ‘pretending’ orgasm is one kind of ‘orgasm work’ undertaken largely by women. Moving away from neoliberal ideas about a rational and managerial approach to sex, this chapter draws primarily on the theory of ‘emotion work’ (Hochschild, 1983) to explore the gendered dynamics of faking orgasm. In this chapter I argue that we need to shift from seeing pretending orgasm as an unfathomable practice rooted in the insecurities of individual women, to seeing it as an ‘inventive bodily technique’ which embodies the tensions of unequal access to sexual pleasure in the context of cultural discourses of work, care, and reciprocity (Jagose, 2010: 529).

Faking it happens. A lot. In fact, studies show that 60 percent of women have delivered an Oscar-worthy performance between the sheets […] While there’s little harm in the occasional bluff, here’s why you should curb the counterfeit climaxing and find your true peak potential.

(Women’s Health)¹

It’s also a good idea to spend some time thinking about why you were pretending. Maybe you were afraid of bruising his ego, or perhaps you worried that he’d reject you if you told him the truth. You could have even felt like you had to live up to some false ideal of porn. Then, if he asks you point-blank if you were faking… or, if you feel compelled to ’fess up about your ‘performance’… you will be able to focus the discussion on your actions rather than his ‘action’. Making it about you and shouldering the responsibility will help prevent him from feeling like a lousy lover.

(Cosmopolitan 2)