Fake Orgasm

"Some fake happiness, some fake sadness, and some fake an orgasm."

—Dominic Riccitello

A Fake Orgasm is, plainly speaking, when somebody pretends to have reached a sexual climax without actually experiencing one.

In fiction and media, this activity is most commonly depicted in one of three ways:

1. During sexual encounters, where a character in the act of lovemaking experiences Anorgasmia and is generally compelled to simulate the act of climaxing, usually either to avoid hurting the feelings of one's sexual partner or because they just want to get it over with.
2. During non-sexual activity, such as when one or two characters in a room will imitate sex noises in order to convince other people listening in that sex is occurring when nothing of the sort is actually happening.
3. Through dialogue or conversation, where a character confesses to having engaged in this behavior, often spoken of when one is in the process of breaking up with a romantic partner or dissing an ex-lover with a clear insinuation that the other person is not particularly very good in bed. Alternatively, someone may openly accuse or suspect their partner of putting on this ruse.

Most frequently, characters presented as engaging in this activity are female. While men in Real Life are also known to take part in similar deception (Especially when using condoms), male references to this practice in fiction and media are more regularly Played for Laughs or are otherwise suggested to be much less convincing than when a woman does it.

Seducer archetypes like the Femme Fatale, the Trophy Wife, or sex workers in general will fake orgasms to stroke the ego of their marks/clients, whom they ultimately don't really care about.

May overlap with The Immodest Orgasm, when a faker hams up their performance, or The Modest Orgasm, when it's downplayed.

See Also: Lie Back and Think of England for more on women not enjoying sex.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Chisa X Pon: The main heroine and her friends end up chatting about faking it and different moral stances on it. The heroine thinks of it as lying and cruel, while her friends think it's a way to protect their lover's feelings.
• Futari Ecchi: Yura ends up faking once because summer exhaustion left her not feeling much during sex and she faked because she saw her lack of reaction was frustrating her husband.
• Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine: In Season 4, Episode 4, Zenigata knows that Fujiko faked an orgasm while they were having sex and points this out to her afterwards.

Comedy

• George Lopez: "Eighty percent of the women who were asked if they fake orgasms said yes. Actually, they said, 'Yes! Oh God, YES!'"
• Ali Wong: In her standup special Don Wong, she says that this is something women should not have to do anymore. She calls it "nutty ass shit" that is wildly indicative of how terrified women are of offending a man. She observes that women would rather fake an orgasm than say, "Hey, I just want to go home... This is so not awesome... You don't listen... [and] I'd really like to just go back to my house and fold clothes."

Films — Live-Action

• 40 Days and 40 Nights: Early in the film, Matt fakes an orgasm with his date. However, she is unconvinced and demands to see his condom. Matt's next instinct is to quickly roll off of her and run out of his bedroom in search of something, anything white.
• All of Me: Peggy confesses to faking her orgasms and imitates her noises when breaking up with Roger, spurning Roger to quip back, "Yeah, well, I faked mine too!"
• The Center of the World: On their third day in Las Vegas, Florence fakes an orgasm while having sex with Richard (Who feels frustrated and disappointed). She later has a 'real' orgasm while pleasuring herself as he watches.
• Drop Dead Gorgeous: As she's being arrested, Gladys claims that the orgasms she had with her husband were all as fake as the furniture he sells.
• Easy A: Olive and Brandon fake having sex during a Wild Teen Party so he can convince his classmates that he's straight. So they lock themselves in a bedroom, sit on the bed, and fake bizarre orgasmic noises for a while. But while she can fake it just fine, he has trouble doing a convincing The Grunting Orgasm so she "helps him" by punching him in the gut.
• The Five-Year Engagement: Tom fakes an orgasm, unconvincingly, while making love with Violet.
  Violet: Did you just fake orgasm?
  Tom: Men can do it, too. I bet you probably couldn't even tell.
  Violet: I could.
• For a Good Time, Call...: Two women, Katie and Lauren, set up a phone sex hotline in their apartment. Naturally, they routinely fake orgasms for their clients.
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall: The two couples end up with rooms next to each other. Peter and Rachel are intentionally loud during the act of lovemaking in order to annoy Sarah. Sarah retaliates by faking an orgasm, much to Aldous's annoyance.
  Aldous: I mean, I've heard that women do fake orgasms, but I've never seen one. It really deeply upset me.
• Iron Sky: Vivian loudly fakes an orgasm while Klaus still has his pants on.
• Klute: When Bree is with her client early in the movie, during a Revealing Hug, we can tell she's faking it.
• The Naked Gun: Played for Laughs. When Frank Drebin is angrily breaking up with Jane Spencer, he tells her, "By the way... I faked every orgasm."
• Romy and Michele's High School Reunion: Romy fakes an orgasm with a car mechanic in order to convince his colleges listening in outside the room that they had sex. In exchange, the mechanic lends her a Cool Car that she can borrow for her high school reunion.
• Sliding Doors: Referenced. The film starts with one of the Helens walking in on her boyfriend Gerry with another woman, Lydia. Later, Helen redials to find out who called Gerry, getting Lydia. She introduces herself saying, "We met once. I walked in on you faking your orgasm."
• Supreme Sanction: Jenna and Marcus rent a room at a fleabag hotel disguised as a prostitute and her pimp with the intention of breaking into a secret facility hidden in the building. When Jenna begins to cut a hole in the hotel room wall from which she could access the secret facility, she advises Marcus to start pretending he's having sex with her, since that was their false pretense for renting the room. Jenna joins in on the fake action, too, while she continues cutting the hole in the wall. After the hole is opened, Marcus amusingly asks if it was "as good for her as it was for [himself]," as if they weren't just simulating sex noises. Jenna doesn't play along and quips that she had to "fake it."
• The Swimmer: Ned's former mistress angrily rejects him and claims that she was faking orgasms when they had sex (Although the way the rest of that scene plays out hints that she may be lying).
• They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970): The film opens with a prostitute scornfully telling her unseen client about what a lousy lay he is, and that she can't even be bothered to "fake it" for him anymore. Said man responds by strangling her.
• They Came Together: They pull a Bait-and-Switch in this parodic, absurdist romantic comedy. When Joel breaks up with Tiffany for the second time, Tiffany tries to get one back at Joel and tells him that she "always faked it." Joel, naturally, assumes she's talking about her orgasms, but Tiffany, instead, reveals herself to having secretly been Judge Judy wearing a latex mask the entire time. Judge Judy insists the orgasms were, indeed, real.
• What Women Want: Nick, who can hear women's thoughts, picks up a girl at a Starbucks and finds it hard to perform while hearing all her jaded critiques about his size and performance, leading the woman to think to herself about intending to "fake it."
• When Harry Met Sally...: Harry and Sally are in Katz's Deli and argue about whether men can tell if a woman is faking. Sally claims that they can't, and to prove her point, she fakes a loud orgasm on the spot, which is convincing enough for one lady bystander to famously respond "I'll have what she's having."
• X: Faked by Bobby-Lynne during her sex scene with Jackson. Jackson initially assumes that he's given her an orgasm for real, but she demonstrates that it's acting.

Literature

• The Dream of Perpetual Motion: While making love with Harold, Miranda has to fake her orgasm while thinking of a previous lover.
• In the book, The Godfather, Johnny Fontaine complains that women tend to have loud, theatrical orgasms when they are with him, because they view him as a sex symbol and assume that is what they should do. This actually makes it less pleasurable for him.
• "The Great Switcheroo": Roald Dahl's adult short story, originally published in Playboy Magazine and later collected in his book Switch Bitch, ends with the narrator's wife confessing that she had hated sex with him and was faking orgasms all this time, but their last sexual experience finally made her realize what she'd been missing all along and intends to make up for lost time. However, the husband can't exactly tell her that he pulled a Bed Trick on her last night (He and his neighbor, Jerry, slept with each others' wives, and Jerry clearly got the better end of the deal).
• The Hotel New Hampshire: Subverted. There's a Running Gag about "Screaming Annie," a hooker who fakes very loud orgasms, but they later turn out to be real.
• The Stand: In Vegas, Dayna becomes Lloyd's mistress in order to get information from him. She fakes an orgasm while they are having sex and thinks about how she would like to put his penis through a meat grinder.
• Warbreaker: Sisirinah is betrothed to the God King Susebron, and is expected to bear him a child. Alas, Susebron is a Manchild with no concept of how babies are made, so Siri keeps loudly faking orgasms while in his chambers so that the priests listening outside think she's at least trying.

Live-Action TV

• The Arrangement: During the filming of "The Kill Plan", a boom operator asks Amelia Briggs to make some orgasm noises so he can test sound levels, and she treats the crew to a ridiculously loud fake orgasm.
• Babylon 5: In the episode "Acts of Sacrifice", When Ivanova (quite accidentally) convinces an alien ambassador that humans are indeed worthy of an alliance, he wants to finalize it in the traditional manner of his people: By having sex. Ivanova doesn't want to have sex with him, and since the ambassador has no idea how human biology works—and would be too proud to admit it—Ivanova latches on to the idea to fabricate the notion of "human style" sex. She dances around, spouts gibberish, fakes an orgasm, and cons the ambassador into believing they had sex.
• Barry: Gene Cousineau's book on acting brings up women faking orgasms with incompetent lovers as an example of how people act in their everyday lives.
• The Big Bang Theory: Parodied and Played for Laughs in "The Hesitation Ramification". Bernadette advises Amy to "fake a laugh" in order to get Sheldon to quit making bad knock-knock jokes, and Howard becomes curious.
  Howard: Fake a laugh? Do you ever do that with me?
  Bernadette: [shaking her head, hesitantly] No, of course not.
  Howard: Well, I'd be able to tell, anyway.
  Bernadette: I don't think you would.
  Howard: Please, I've made plenty of girls laugh, sometimes just by asking them out.
  [Bernadette laughs]
  Howard: Yeah? Well, I fake my orgasms.
• CSI: NY: In the episode "Crushed", the witnesses of a young woman experiencing an orgasm in public differ in their opinions of the display. A clearly disgusted middle-aged woman declares that she was obviously faking it, while a smug middle-aged man is convinced it was real because he's certain he can tell the difference.
• Desperate Housewives: Edith Britt disses her first husband with a Stealth Insult by invoking this, claiming he taught her how to lie and bluff since she had to fake a lot of orgasms during their marriage.
• The Detour: In "The Tub", Robin suspects Nate of faking an orgasm while making love. He claims he did but didn't ejaculate. "It's a thing [he's] been working on."
• Doom Patrol: Played for Laughs where a mishap causes almost the entire team to have an orgasm at the same time. Cliff, who lost his genitalia when he lost the rest of his physical body, decides to fake having an orgasm so that he doesn't feel left out.
• Euphoria: In the episode "You Who Cannot See, Think of Those Who Can", Rue fakes an orgasm (very badly) during oral sex with Jules because she's too high on drugs to feel anything. It's not only an embarrassing moment but also demonstrates how drugs are interfering with every aspect of Rue's life; she cannot immerse herself in a sexual experience.
• Friends: Gender Flipped in the episode "The One Where Rachel Goes Back to Work", where Chandler admits that he faked "that thing that I have to do to make a baby."
  Monica: Guys can fake it? Unbelievable! The one thing that's ours!
• The Golden Girls: Implied in the episode "Bang the Drum, Stanley". Sophia is pretending to be paralyzed after an accident to file a lawsuit, and, as Dorothy talks about it, Blanche mistakes what she's saying:
  Dorothy: There's no doubt about it, she's faking.
  Blanche: Uh uh, I didn't learn to do that 'til I was married.
• Harry and Paul: In the Retraux take on When Harry Met Sally, the woman fakes an orgasm by crossing her eyes and clearing her throat slightly. Everyone else in the restaurant is still shaken to their core.
• Hawaii Five-0: In one episode, a computer hacker's girlfriend reveals to him that she's a murderous Russian agent planning to sell a stolen NSA file on the black market, and holding him prisoner to force him to decrypt it. The hacker questions if there was any truth to their relationship.
  Hacker: Was any of it real?
  Russian: Well, definitely not the orgasms.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • In the episode "Slap Bet", Barney believes that Robin had appeared in a porn film. Lily believes this sounds plausible because she has "the fake orgasm noises" down pat, further explaining that she can hear Robin and Ted when they're together because the walls are thin. Ted has to point out that the walls aren't why he's annoyed by this revelation.
  • Implied in the episode "Architect of Destruction". When Barney and Ted argue over who gets to press the button to demolish a building, Robin (Who dated both of them) chimes in that neither of them could even find "the button" and that the building would probably "fake an implosion to get it over with." Both of them then insist Robin was talking about the other.
• Hustle: The episode "Confessions" has Stacie and Danny posing as an engaged couple for a con. One scene has them sharing a bedroom and when they hear someone in the next room and think it might be the mark; so they fake sex and orgasm noises to preserve their cover. In truth, Danny knows it's their colleague Mickey and just wants to make him jealous. However, come the morning after, it's revealed he wasn't fooled and he criticizes them for their obviously fake Immodest Orgasm.
  Mickey: Common mistake. No one has that good a time.
• The Interns: In Season 2, Episode 1, Gleb and Varya finally have sex together, but Varya was not fully satisfied by this and had to fake her orgasm so as not to hurt Gleb's feelings. However, she got a bit overzealous while faking it, and now Gleb thinks that it was "the best night of [her] life."
• Jane the Virgin: While the title character loses her virginity to her new husband Michael in "Chapter Forty-Seven", she lies that she finished to Michael as not to disappoint him. After learning some lessons about spontaneity, communication, and processing one's loss of virginity, Jane and Michael are able to have mutually satisfying sex.
• Mad Love: When Larry sleeps with Kate's sister, they cover it up by saying that he and Connie slept together. Connie goes along with it but isn't happy. She claims that Larry was terrible in bed, to which Larry responds that she seemed to enjoy herself. Connie insists that she faked her orgasm, and Larry says he did the same. Connie retorts that he faked his orgasm pretty quickly.
• Masters of Sex:
  • In The Pilot, Dr. Masters covertly studies brothel worker Betty having sex with a john. While discussing the encounter afterwards, she mentions that the orgasm he recorded was faked for her customer's benefit. This inspires Masters to try to study sex in a more controlled laboratory environment, despite the legal hurdles.
  • After Masters's study is kicked out of the hospital by the staff, he and Johnson return to the brothel to try to study sex there. One worker masturbates for them with a dildo while hooked up to an EKG machine, and when she makes an Immodest Orgasm they can realize from the readout that it was fake. Like Betty earlier, she tells them it's part of the job.
• Nip/Tuck: In the episode "Joel Seabrook", Kimber and Christian are having difficulty in bed. After Christian makes a failed attempt to "spice things up" on the advice of an auto-asphyxiator (Which, unsurprisingly, hurts Kimber), Kimber tries to take the lead for their next encounter after consulting the Kama Sutra. However, this doesn't go over well, either, especially after Kimber's orgasm is so uncharacteristic, in Christian's eyes, that he stops everything and accuses her of faking.
• Orange Is the New Black: In the episode "Trapped in an Elevator", Alex records a video of herself faking it for Piper to enjoy.
• Saturday Night Live: The sketch "Katz's Deli" is set in the location where the famous scene from When Harry Met Sally was filmed. Four women are sitting at the same table from the movie, and they start to take turns "playing the Meg Ryan part." When it comes time for "Rhonda's" (played by Leslie Jones) turn, her fake orgasm consists of monologuing an entire oddly specific sexual encounter involving her "brother's husband" in a public bathroom, among a few bizarre details, which puzzles her friends.
• Scrubs:
  • Inverted in the episode "Their Story". Jordan tells Elliot that in order to make Dr. Cox feel inadequate, she sometimes fakes NOT having orgasms.
  • In another episode, Turk demonstrates to Elliot how men fake orgasms, something she realizes she has experienced.
  • In "Her Story II", Elliot accuses J.D. of faking because he didn't exclaim, "Bombs away!"
• Seinfeld: In the episode "The Mango", the characters Discuss faking orgasms, and Elaine admits that she always faked when she was with Jerry, upsetting him. Later, Kramer says that he sometimes faked it so that could he wrap it up and move on to other things. In the end, George accuses his girlfriend of faking, causing her to throw him out.
• Sex and the City: In the episode "They Shoot Single People, Don't They?", Miranda reconnects with an ex-lover that she describes as an ophthalmologist who she "once faked orgasms with." However, history repeats itself, and she continues faking it with him. When Miranda tells him this, the man's confidence is shaken, so he gets her to coach him, which, in turn, makes sex feel more like an exam subject.
• The Suite Life on Deck: Parodied in a discussion of G-Rated Sex. Cody grows insecure about Bailey saying she doesn't think he's funny and has been faking her laughter at his jokes.
  Bailey: Yeah, see, I was faking it.
  Cody: You were faking it?
  Bailey: Don't worry, It's really hard to make me laugh.
  Cody: Did Moose [her ex] make you laugh?
  Bailey: Well...
  Cody: What about those times you went "heheheohhehehe"? It sounded so real.
  Bailey: Yep, all fake.
• Tales from the Crypt: In the episode "Came the Dawn", Roger's date in the opening scene is seen practicing faking orgasms in the bathroom, just before Joanna, Roger's alternate personality, hacks her to death.
• Two and a Half Men:
  • In "Captain Terry's Spray-On Hair", Charlie finds out that Chelsea hasn't been enjoying their sex and is distressed because sexually satisfying his girlfriends was one of the few things he was good at in relationships. He's even more perturbed when she reveals it wasn't the first time she didn't climax and asked her if she ever faked it. When she asks if it matters, Charlie comically says, "If you really loved me, you'd keep faking it." Later it's revealed she's experienced Anorgasmia due to her own petty issues with her ex and Charlie is relieved that the problem is with her and not him.
  • In "A Pudding-Filled Cactus", Alan has moved in with Lyndsey but is having a secret affair with Melissa. However, he can't keep up having sex with both of them on the same day, so he has to fake orgasms with Lyndsey. Charlie's perplexed when told, since he didn't think it was even possible for men to fake orgasms.
  • In "Some Kind of Lesbian Zombie", Lyndsey and Alan poke fun at their Masochism Tango while lampshading how often they fake their orgasms with each other.
    Lyndsey: [After deciding to sleep together again] I promise this time, I won't fake my orgasm.
    Alan: Oh, then neither will I!
• Will & Grace: When Rob and Ellen get engaged it comes out that Rob and Grace once slept together. Rob tries to reassure Ellen that it meant nothing to him by claiming sleeping with Grace was "like having sex with a cricket."
  Grace: Yeah? Well I was fake chirping.

Theatre

• Heathers: At the end of her rant/midlife crisis in "Shine a Light," Ms. Fleming shouts, "Steve, I'm ending our affair!" She adds that she "faked it... every single time" then celebrates how good it feels to get that truth off her chest.

Video Games

• Heavy Rain: Madison fakes having an orgasm in order to prevent a guard from entering the room while she's interrogating his boss.

Visual Novels

• Highway Blossoms: The second sex scene sees Marina take the lead over Amber, which turns awkward, considering she's a virgin who had previously considered herself straight up to this point. Amber eventually fakes an orgasm, considering they might be here all night otherwise.

Webcomics

• Ménage à 3: DiDi had been faking orgasms her entire life (and, in fact, has never experienced one), despite her myriad one-night stands. It turns out that she's so beautiful that seeing her naked causes men to climax too quickly. It's only after she discovers lesbian sex (and Gary's cunnilingus) that she feels something, and from that point on she gets much more aggressive in getting what she wants.

Web Original

• Inverted in the Reductress article "How to Fake Not Having an Orgasm To Keep Him Humble", which advises women to lie that they didn't finish to prevent their partners from having inflated egos.

Web Videos

• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series: Parodied when Kaiba learns Yugi was beaten in a card game, and he's so furious, as he believes he is the only one allowed to defeat Yugi, that he calls Yugi to chew him out. The whole scene plays out as one angry lover calling another and chewing him out for cheating on him, including a line about admitting to "faking" in order to hurt him.
  Kaiba: I thought we had something special, Yugi! What, is our rivalry just one big joke to you?! I committed to beating you in a card game! And I thought I could rely on you to be true to me as your most hated enemy! But I guess I was wrong!
  Yugi: Kaiba, it's not what it looks like—
  Kaiba: I bet you say that to all the duelists! If I had had parents, I bet they would have told me that you were no good for me! And let me tell you one last thing. All those times I got angry and declared that I would have my vengeance on you?! I WAS FAKING! [Hangs up the phone angrily]

Western Animation

• American Dad!:
  • In "Gorillas in the Mist", Stan and Steve are implied to be stoned in Steve's bedroom while sharing some of their "deep thoughts," and Stan opens up that he suspects his wife Francine of doing this.
    Stan: Sometimes, I think Francine fakes her orgasms.
    Steve: Well, through the wall, it sounds like you're slaying it.
    Stan: Thanks, man.
  • In "Poltergasm", the Smith house gets haunted by an apparition born from Francine's sexual frustration. Stan is outraged at the thought that his wife doesn't think he's good in bed, saying that her sex face is just like Meg Ryan's in the movie...when she faked it.
• Family Guy:
  • In the episode "Seahorse Seashell Party", Chris screams in Meg's face, "I faked all my orgasms!" and runs away, after Meg stands up for herself and, rightfully, criticizes the rest of her family for constantly abusing her.
  • In the episode "Better Off Meg", after Meg comes clean with her family about having faked her death, her mother Lois empathizes with her, explaining that women fake lots of things. Lois herself admits to faking her orgasms and being impressed about Peter's accomplishments at work.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "Bart's Friend Falls in Love", Bart's class watches a sex ed film narrated by Troy McClure and starring bunnies, during which Edna Krabappel casually accuses the female bunny of faking an orgasm.
    Troy McClure: Then came the big day. Fluffy and Fuzzy got married! That night came the honeymoon...
    Kids: Ewwww!
    Mrs. Krabappel: [puffing a cigarette] She's faking it.
  • Parodied in "Brother from the Same Planet". Homer asks Bart if he remembers the fun times they used to have together when he would push Bart on a swing, but Bart dismissively says he was "faking it."
    Homer: [Gasp] Liar!
    Bart: Oh yeah? Remember this? "Higher, dad! Higher! Wheeeeee... WHEEEEEE... Push harder, dad, c'mon! Higher! Higher! Faster!"
    Homer: Stop it! Stop it! [covering his ears and running away] STOP IT!

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