Some people will even jump in a freezing river to avoid coming too soon

“Thank f*** men don’t need to fake orgasms” said my friend Gareth.  We’d been watching a DVD of Shortbus, John Cameron Mitchell’s arty film featuring those polysexual New Yorkers who have sex for real on camera and get all confused about it.  Among the characters is a sex therapist who, despite her job, has never had a real orgasm.  Her efforts at simulating excitement looked exhausting, but I thought Gareth’s smug relief that men never go through the same stuff was a little naïve.  Men fake it too sometimes – and I should know.

Contrary to popular belief, not all men are great spunk cannons waiting to fire at the slightest frottage.  The only male sex complications that get much press are:

1. Not being able to get hard enough

2. Being a one minute wonder

But we’re far more complex than that, aren’t we?  Men can’t always come on command (no matter how fertile their imaginations are) and like women, we occasionally fake it to avoid bruising tender egos.  Many people’s sexual pleasure comes as much from being validated by someone else’s excitement as from their own physical sensations.  If you can’t manage a good spurt, you can risk denting your lover’s self-esteem.

The problem is, faking a male orgasm is damned tricky.  The moaning and hurrying bit are easy enough to simulate, but what about producing the necessary evidence?  If you’re the active partner in full sex, at least your lover can’t check out so easily whether you’ve come or not.  Otherwise, all you can do is pretend you’ve shot so far it’s not even in the bed (it happens), which isn’t an easy lie to pull off, so to speak.

The Moroccan guy was a bit like this - not bad, eh?

I don’t resort to such tricks nowadays – I’m either too self-accepting or too lazy – but I have on occasion in the past.  A good while back, I managed to get it together with a hot-but-uptight French Moroccan bouncer I picked up in Bloomsbury Square on my way home from a bar – I was living nearby in London’s Holborn at the time, so persuading people out of the bushes and into the bedroom was pretty easy.  He was way out of what I (wrongly) considered my league back then, and I got so excited at the sight of him that I was afraid I would never last the full innings.  Thinking of images to keep myself in check (cold baths? John Prescott?), I decided to keep myself under control by imagining that arch-tantric Sting, plunging endlessly into his lady wife like a rusty spoon into a pot of jam.  This proved effective – too effective.  I soon found I couldn’t bring matters to a head at all.  My Moroccan friend was wounded by my ability to go the final mile and eventually barked: “Of course, there’s no pressure – just F***ING COME!”

The no-orgasm woman from Shortbus

Under duress, I simulated the necessary thrusting and panting, then hustled the still empty condom into the bin before he had a chance to glimpse it.  This appeased my bouncer friend a bit, but afterwards I thought “what was the point of that?”  In focussing solely on doing what my partner wanted (lasting as long as possible) I ended up barely giving him what he wanted at all (proof that he was hot).  Pleasing your bedmates is one thing, but when simulated excitement starts taking the place of real pleasure, it’s time for a change.  I’ve never faked since.  Honest.

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