For the ‘Pleasure’ issue, we explored the intersection between the physical and emotional elements of pleasure through orgasms. We wanted to highlight a phenomenon that we all know occurs but is often left out of the conversation about pleasure and sex: faking orgasms. Depending on your personal sexual background, the idea of having an orgasm may seem shameful, exciting, mythical, scary, or perfectly normal. We collected anonymous stories from Tufts students of a range of identities about their experiences with faking orgasms. Our goal is to shed light on the myriad of complex reasons and underlying circumstances that might lead someone to fake pleasure. We hope that you read the stories that follow with an open mind and an open heart.

ive talked to my gynecologist, my doctor, my therapist, and many, many friends. i have also consulted a great podcast if people are interested its called how cum lol. and i really think at this point its just on me and the timing and the person (or not) and the place and the weather. i truly think i wont be able to orgasm until i stop thinking about it. i want to view my pleasure as a continuous presence in my life not something i have to just do. at one point masterbating felt like i job so i stopped. because it shouldn’t. i should be able to feel good even if i don’t orgasm. but more than anything i want to feel comfortable in myself so that i can let go and actually be able to experience it.

One time I faked an orgasm because I had to go to class (I’m a guy) (I don’t think it worked)

It’s one of my biggest secrets that I’ve never cum w another person bc my friends see me as a very sexually liberated / advanced person – I was even a sex health rep at one point! I basically felt like a fraud all the time lol woohoo. Now I’m in a great relationship but it’s still never happened for me

I was having sex with this guy and he did something that felt good so I moaned loudly and he thought that was me having an orgasm. I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise. The problem was he then thought every time I moaned loudly I was having an orgasm. And to some extent moaning is unconscious aka I couldn’t keep quiet the entire time. So at the end of it he was like “so how was having 18 orgasms?”