day 23
“I’ll have what she’s having”
The extraordinary world of faking it and why the hell we still bother. There’s an incredibly famous scene in When Harry Met Sally, set in Katz Deli in NYC ( which I have visited and ADORED) where Meg Ryan proves a point to Billy Crystal by unashamedly and incredibly vocally faking an orgasm, to show that he would never be able to tell the difference. It’s totally glorious. Have a watch below if you haven’t seen it.
In this women “empowerment” age where you can’t walk past a single shop without seeing some kind of branded “girl boss” t shirt or misguided pencil case saying “i’m a bitch but so are you hunni”… it seems extraordinary that women are still in fact, on the occasion, faking it, even in goddamn 2021. Today, I re-watched this scene with a friend who asked if I’d ever faked it. I nodded, yes but years ago, when I was only just starting out in the world of sex. But I realised to my shock, that wasn’t quite true….
There are plenty of reasons why we fake it. Often, women can feel pressured to finish, like we’re taking too long, we’re wondering if the person down there needs to come up for air/ is getting jaw cramp/ we’re maybe not really feeling it anymore and have actually started wondering how long this will take until we can get a snack, so secretly want it to be over and done with. It’s also dependent on the relationship of course, for a one night stand, faking it almost seems like a kind gesture, here’s a gold star A+ on going down, see you never, namaste. Although, it isn’t of course. Faking an orgasm reinforces the idea to the (more often than not) man that he is God’s gift to women, can continue rolling out his normal moves in a sexual scenario and not ever need to ask what the woman likes/ what position works for her etc. By faking it, you’re deferring responsibility onto the next person they have sex with to teach them good communication or the ability to read physical cues well. Good sex should feel like a fluid conversation, not a stilted monologue happening in separate worlds.
And let’s be frank here, no one knows what the hell they’re doing. It’s a lot of fumbling and embarrassment at the start of your sexual career and then once you’ve been with someone long enough, you begin to figure out what works, what doesn’t and how to do it. But then as soon as you start that exploration with a new person, it’s basically like being handed an Ikea table with no manual, that’s been shredded, set alight and told to build it from scratch. :) So you’re really starting from the ground up, with maybe a little more confidence and self surety.
That leads us onto faking it in a relationship, which is a whole different ball game all together. More like an act of betrayal than anything else. It suggests that maybe there’s something wrong in the relationship, attraction has wavered, you’re still not over that fight you had about ordering Chinese vs. Thai so can’t fully relax into it.
Much to my embarrassment, this is something I did relatively recently. We were experimenting with sex toys, and I was proud of my partner for being so relaxed about incorporating them into the dynamic, I felt a responsibility almost to reward them for their good work. And before you begin to say I felt the need to fake it because women prioritise male pleasure and male rejection over their own satisfaction… it was with another woman. Which I’m fully aware makes no sense. It’s not the 1950s, I’m not a housewife and faking it in a non heteronormative scenario IS an act of betrayal to the goddamn feminist cause. You would also think that if anyone could tell that you’d faked it, it would be another lady. But... apparently not. Not to intimidate anyone but I DID do Drama GCSE guys. So think it must have been pretty convincing.
That’s to say, I have now made a pact with myself and I invite you to do the same, to not ever fake it anymore. POST pandemic ladies aren’t going to be faking anything. Sex, intimacy, parties, kissing. It feels like too much of a gift to waste it by pretending or wasting it on anyone you’re not almost painfully attracted to. And in the words of that famous scene, I’ll have what she’s having but it’ll be real this time round.