Women fake orgasms to make men feel more macho, new study suggests

 By Georgia Lambert via SWNS

Women fake orgasms to make their man feel more macho suggests a new study.

Women in relationships with men often sacrifice their own sexual behavior between the sheets in an effort to protect their partner's perceived "fragile" manhood, according to the findings.

New research has revealed that women are putting their sexual satisfaction to one side and resorting to lengths like faking orgasms to make their men feel better.

While previous research has focused on how the cultural view of masculinity affects men and their behavior, this study offers a new light on what it's like for women who choose to protect their partners' sense of masculinity, perhaps at their own expense.

Lead author, Jessica Jordan, a doctoral student from the University of South Florida, said: "Women are prioritizing what they think their partners need over their own sexual needs and satisfaction."

After collecting data from 283 women, the researchers found that the more women saw their partner's manhood as precarious, the more anxiety they had, which lowered their own sexual pleasure and the rate at which they orgasmed.

An additional study, involving 196 women, discovered that participants who were asked to imagine a male partner whose manhood was "fragile" were also less likely to provide honest sexual communication.

Ms. Jordan explained: "If a woman is concerned about inadvertently threatening her partner’s manhood, that could lead to a breakdown of communication."

In a third study, the researchers recruited 157 women in sexual relationships with men from Facebook and they asked them to complete an anonymous survey about their sex lives.

The results showed that women who made more money than their partners were twice as likely to have fake orgasms.

Ms. Jordan explained that honest communication is at the center of this problem.

She added that if women have been led to believe that it is their job to protect their partner's sense of masculinity because of the lack of sexual feedback, then it makes sense for them to do so.

Likewise, if men are not made aware that their behavior makes their partner feel like sexual feedback is not welcome, they are not given the opportunity to tell their partner otherwise.

Future research, Ms. Jordan said, should explore this phenomenon within couples, including men in same-sex couples.

While this study focused on how women perceive and respond to masculine insecurity, Ms. Jordan noted that it is important to remember that honest communication and putting the effort into understanding your partners’ sexual needs will benefit men as well.

She summed it up by saying: "When society creates an impossible standard of masculinity to maintain, nobody wins.”

The study was published in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science.