The pay gap’s sister, the orgasm gap, has recently had me thinking. Sexually confident and liberated women all over the world are faking orgasms. Some may be faking it because they don’t know if they’ve climaxed, others fake it so sex ends sooner and others do it because they want to placate the person they’re in bed with.

There is no shame in faking it. Fake it for whatever reason you have, but maybe consider why you’re faking it.

We’ve all been a bit too tired for sex and would rather fake an orgasm so we can roll over and fall asleep. However, if you’re faking it so you can stop having sex (maybe you’ve lost interest or perhaps the other person is too drunk or high to come but wants you to ‘finish’), that’s a different matter. Why are we faking it to please the other person in our bed?

Fake it for you, not for them.

Good sex is all about communication – not solely orgasms. Many of us know exactly how to make ourselves come; some of us have got it down to a fine-art of five minutes as a stress-reliever yet we can feel embarrassed to say what feels good (and more importantly, what doesn’t!) or feel ashamed that we haven’t climaxed after [insert your own time judgements here]. It’s also possible that we feel self-conscious (and not just about our bodies). Sex is probably one of the most intimate things we can do with someone, and if we’re sleeping with someone new, it can be hard to ‘get out of our heads’ and relax and enjoy the moment.

There is a wealth of articles about positive sex on the internet and this is just one of thousands of sex blogs. Some offer excellent advice, others less so, but I’ve come across some brilliant resources to help women feel sexually confident and empowered. One such resource is a sex-ed online school from California, O.School. The sex advice offered is accessible for all people of all ages (teenagers to post-50 year olds) and is written in an informative and enjoyable tone. Even the most sexually liberated of people will find something to learn from O.School.

Regular readers will know that I’ve recently got a new gig as an Erotic Scriptwriter at Emjoy. Emjoy has an amazing selection of sexy stories and sexual wellbeing practices to help any women to desire and feel desirable (I promise this is not a commissioned blog post!). The app will boost your confidence and empower you to communicate with your partner(s), all advised by a qualified sex therapist. If you’re not sure how to speak with your partner about your wants and needs, listening to an erotic story can equip you with the tools to do so. (It’s important to note that the stories steer well-clear of clichés, misconceptions and porn-storylines so you really can imagine yourself in that scenario.)

This brings me back to communication. I talk about communication a lot on this blog. For years, I was too embarrassed to tell (mainly men) what felt good and what didn’t. What did this result in? Not orgasms, let me tell you that. Instead, I had many sexually unsatisfied nights and mornings alone in my bed, with my vibrator. Who was I serving by faking it? The easy answer is the man I was in bed with. He seemed pleased he made me orgasm, but then I was also slightly relieved to be able to go to sleep, serving my needs too.

Then I thought harder about the mismatch (hypocrisy?) between writing about sex and yet not being able to tell someone what I enjoyed between the sheets. Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself:

• Do you want to be sleeping with someone if you can’t tell them you’re not going to have an orgasm?
• Do you want to be sleeping with someone who’s upset or offended if they can’t make you orgasm?

If you’re like me, probably not.

While women and men are working tirelessly to shrink the gender pay gap, we can make huge differences with small acts in our bedrooms. Fake it if you want to – after all, it’s your body and you can do as you wish with it, but don’t fake it for them.

Photo by Valeria Boltneva from Pexels