Stop Faking Orgasms
Signed... a tired woman
I wasn’t planning to talk about sex today. But then I passed something on the bridge that reminded me of the quiet, eerie things we get used to—on roads, and in our relationships.
I saw a headless torso on the 3rd Mainland Bridge yesterday morning. There was no sign of a road accident, just the parts on the road with traffic cones to barricade it. Someone I know had a theory: the body was dumped, the perp tried to dump it in the lagoon and did a shoddy job. I’m sorry for the grim start, but I had to share. Mortality is an interesting concept and the more you understand it, the smaller you feel in the grand scheme of the world.
This rant will reach its intended audience one way or another, but I hope you relate to it as you read. I’ve only had 14 years of experience in the subject matter, but as a tired participant of a discourse that comes up every 3 business days, please let me rest abeg!
The Quiet Performance Under the Covers
There’s a kind of performance many women know by heart.
It’s not on a stage. It’s under the covers. On couches. In cars. Sometimes, in relationships that looked perfect from the outside.
It starts with a look. A hand. An expectation. And then something quieter takes over.
Not desire—duty.
Not pleasure—pressure.
And so, we do it.
We arch a little, sigh on cue, maybe even add that final moan, the one we know sounds believable.
And just like that, the curtain falls. Another orgasm successfully faked. You likely gave this performance because you thought it was expected of you, or tried to protect your partners’ ego or you really wanted the sex to feel like what you imagined when you initiated it (if you did, of course, because you should be initiating too). There’s something quietly strategic about letting a man think he did a good job.
Fatigue, Not Fear
A well-timed breath, a small arch of the back, a satisfied sigh. All of it choreographed not because you’re scared or ashamed, but because I’m done explaining why I’m not impressed. That’s not fear. That’s emotional efficiency.
We don’t talk enough about the women who fake it, not from fear, but from fatigue. From calculation. From the desire to get through the moment without having to soothe fragile egos or navigate the swamp of disappointment. Some might call that dishonest. I call it risk management.
Because here’s the thing: sometimes you don’t want to turn a mediocre experience into a full-blown post-game analysis. You just want to roll over, text your group chat, and go to sleep.
And sometimes, it’s easier to say “wow” than “we need to talk.”
This isn’t about trauma. This is about preservation.
It’s about maintaining peace in a space where women are often still seen as recipients of pleasure, not participants in it. It’s about knowing that the moment you say, “Actually, I didn’t come,” you become the difficult one. The ungrateful one. The one who needs fixing, guiding, teaching. And suddenly, you’re the problem.
Yearning Is a Dying Art
You’re likely wondering what led to this right?
I realised recently that we’ve lost the art of flirting as a civilisation and it’s hurting me and my homegirls! Someone wrote to a podcast about how her amazing boyfriend of nearly two years had never made her reach orgasm, but she has always given the performance I described above and is now finding it difficult to raise the conversation because the poor performance is giving her the ick. Now, if this lady and others like her didn’t become thespians in erotic matters, I would not have to spend so much time explaining foreplay to Kunle or receive “I only fuck hard” from a potential sneaky link as an attempt to make me yearn for a steamy session with him. Needless to say, Kunle and Mr. sneaky freak never made it to first base.
Let’s Stop Rewarding Mediocrity
You see yeah, we need to bring “yearning” back into the dating pool quickly! It is a matter of national urgency at this rate. Hozier did not say “no grave could hold him back from crawling to his lady” for you to drive from the Shoms to Ikate at 11:30 pm when he sends “WYD” stand up! And you sir, you’re trying to take her to poundtown all night but there’s no food in sight when she arrives at yours. What if she gets hypoglycemic mid-coitus and passes out? Why do you still have sheets from three weeks ago on your bed with a rotation of at least three women? Who raised you?!
I want better sexual experiences for me and my homegirls. Personally, I seek it out and refuse to perform if my partner is doing a bad job, but I can admit that I’m just as culpable as the next woman with the performance. It’s a once-in-a-while experience for me, but I often perform on occasion if I observe that positive reinforcement helps (most times it doesn’t). If you relate to this piece a bit too much, here’s a tip: So much of intimacy is shaped by how we speak, what we name, what we withhold, what we pretend to enjoy just to keep things smooth. But real connection doesn’t come from silence or performance. It comes from being brave enough to speak your desire instead of your disappointment. To guide, not endure. To invite your partner into your experience, not just observe theirs. If we can shift the language of sex from performance to participation, we open the door to something far more satisfying than perfection: presence.
Things I Enjoyed…
The receipts podcast Episode “HELP! I Can Hear My Parents Doing the Deed!”
Listening to a mashup of Hozier and the Script’s essentials. Yearning unlimited!
Learning how to do pushups again and seeing results