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The road to hell is paved with good intentions: People who fake orgasm do it so they can spare their partners' feelings, according to a team of Canadian researchers who are trying to figure out why women and men (yes, men) feign pleasure with their lovers.

"The No. 1 reason was 'I wanted to make them feel good about themselves.' They were altruistic motives," said Léa Séguin, a PhD student in the department of sexology at the University of Quebec at Montreal who conducted the study with researchers at the University of Guelph.

Most studies on faking orgasm have focused exclusively on women. Far less attention has been paid to why people do it, men included. This current study, published online in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, mined motivation among 147 fakers – 94 women and 53 men, predominantly heterosexual, age 18 to 29. They were pulled from a larger study of 525 people that found 43 per cent of women and 17 per cent of men had copped to simulating orgasm with their current partners.

The primary goal for most fakers was to boost their partners' self-esteem and to make them happy: "They wanted to facilitate orgasm for the partner by exaggerating their own pleasure," said Séguin.

More people in long-term relationships faked than those who were dating. "It's almost like a relationship maintenance strategy. You really want to keep the relationship happy."

There were some notable gender differences. Men more often than women attributed the ruse to alcohol: They'd had too much to drink and decided to fake climax.

Male pretenders also cited insecurity in a performance script that ends with the male orgasm.

"Normal men are supposed to be in the mood for sex all the time, they always orgasm and they are also able to remain erect throughout the entire sexual encounter. There are a whole bunch of things tied into their masculinity," said Séguin. The male fakers "wanted to avoid appearing inadequate and losing their partner."

Then there's the stuff that no one really wants to hear. More men than women faked because they felt their lover was unskilled and they wanted to get the encounter over with. "Men were more likely to fake because the sex or the partner was disappointing or unpleasant in some way," said Séguin. Some men said they faked because they regretted their choice of partner, a problematic point given that all the respondents were in committed relationships, not referencing awkward one night stands. Somewhat heartening was that these excuses were the least-endorsed; much more often men just wanted their partners to feel good about themselves.

It's up for debate whether faking orgasm constitutes altruism or deception. What's clear is that many people would rather fake it than talk about the sex they actually want. Which means that amid the manufactured grunts, people could be missing a teachable moment.

According to Séguin: "The bottom line is you're doing this in order to avoid communication" – either about not wanting to have had sex in the first place, or preferring a different type of intimacy than is on offer, or just knowing that you're not going to "get there" this time, no matter what is going on.

"The question is why are people afraid of communicating these things to their partner. If sex wasn't so scripted with orgasm treated as the goal …if sex was more a question of an experience with someone, to get closer to someone or to experience pleasure, period, then people might not feel the need to fake at all. It would be a non-issue."

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