Sorry, Meg Ryan. If you tend to get a little, uh, theatrical between the sheets like Ryan did in When Harry Met Sally, a Canadian study has proven that your partner probably knows you're faking it if he's attuned to your emotions outside the bedroom. Researchers studied 84 heterosexual couples who were married or cohabitating and measured each participant's views and those they perceived of their partners, including sexual satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, quality of communication about sexual issues within their relationships, and emotion recognition ability. They found that women gauged their partners' sexual satisfaction fairly accurately. Men were fairly accurate in assessing their female partners' satisfaction, but researchers found men sometimes "slightly underestimated" sexual satisfaction.
The couples' communication – or lack of – and emotional recognition played a part in whether or not they knew the other partner was faking it. But why do people fake orgasms? Another study published in the Journal of Sexual Archives examined 481 single women with an average age of 20 and found they faked it for four main reasons: altruistic deceit (making the guy feel good), insecurity/fear, elevated arousal and "sexual adjournment" (or just to get it over with). The surprising reason was "elevated arousal" – or trying to turn herself on. However, researchers pointed out that maybe it's not so surprising, given that women in uncommitted relationships report being unable to achieve orgasm as easily as those in committed relationships. And how many women have ever faked it? Some reports say up to a whopping 80 percent!