Let us start with Meg Ryan in that deli. If you have seen When Harry Met Sally, you know the scene. And if you have ever been on the other side of a faked orgasm, either giving one or receiving one, you also know it was not quite as funny in real life.

Between 53% and 85% of women admit to faking an orgasm at least once. Some research pushes that number even higher. A study by Brewer and Hendrie found that 25% of women routinely use vocalization to fake it, doing so 90% of the time they realize they are not going to climax. Another 80% faked vocalization about half the time they were unable to orgasm. Those are not occasional white lies. That is a rehearsed performance running on a regular schedule.

And before anyone raises their hand to say men fake it too, yes they do. About 36% of men who have faked an orgasm used vocal performance to pull it off. But women? 61%. The gap in faking mirrors the gap in finishing, and neither one is a coincidence.

So why are we doing it?

The research is unusually direct on this point. Women report faking it to speed up their partner’s ejaculation because of boredom, fatigue, discomfort, time limitations, or simply wanting sex to end. That sentence deserves a full stop and a moment of reflection. Women are manufacturing evidence of pleasure primarily to manage someone else’s timeline and emotional experience. We have quite literally made his finish line our entire job.

Charlene Muehlenhard, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Kansas, has studied this dynamic for years. In her 2009 paper in the Journal of Sex Research, she described the cultural script at work. Men are expected to give a woman an orgasm. Her orgasm becomes proof of the quality of his performance. Since women do not ejaculate, there is no automatic visible signal that the job is done. So vocalization stepped in to fill that role. She needs to let him know “mission accomplished,” whether it is true or not.

Since Meg Ryan gave women a cultural reference point for exactly what that sounds like, the bar has been set accordingly. The only difference between her performance and the one playing out in bedrooms everywhere is that she was making a point. Most women doing it in real life are just trying to get some sleep, or end something painful, or protect someone’s ego, or reclaim a tiny fragment of control in a situation where they feel they have none.

That last part matters and I want to say it clearly. Some women use faking as a coping mechanism in relationships where they feel diminished or controlled. That is a different conversation than a woman who fakes it because she is tired and wants to move on with her evening. Both deserve acknowledgment. Neither one is a personal failure. Both point to a larger truth about what women have been taught to prioritize in the bedroom.

Here is what faking it actually costs, though, and this is the part the research does not always get to. Every faked orgasm is accurate information withheld from your partner. It is a roadmap that leads nowhere. It teaches your partner that what they are doing is working when it is not, and it trains your own nervous system to perform pleasure rather than feel it. Over time, faking becomes the path of least resistance and real becomes harder to access, not because your body cannot get there, but because you have spent years rerouting around it.

Many sex therapists and researchers point out that most male partners actually want honest direction. They would rather know what works than spend years confidently doing something that does not. The performance protects his ego in the short term and quietly starves the relationship of real intimacy in the long term.

Stopping does not require a dramatic confession. It does not require sitting someone down and recounting every performance going back years. Sex therapists suggest a simpler approach. Next time, just say what you want. “I would really like it if you did this.” Or show your partner. Or introduce something new together. You are not obligated to disclose the history in order to change the present.

What you are obligated to, if your pleasure matters to you and it should, is honesty about what your body actually needs. That starts with knowing it yourself. Masturbation is not a consolation prize. It is research. It is how you learn your own roadmap so you can hand someone else accurate directions instead of sending them confidently in the wrong direction while you applaud their effort from the passenger seat.

The orgasm gap and the faking gap are the same problem wearing different clothes. Both trace back to a culture that built its entire sexual script around male pleasure and taught women to perform around the edges of it. The script is not serving you. You are allowed to put it down.

Stop performing. Start navigating. Because if it is predictable, it is preventable.