Abstract
Pretending orgasm is a widespread phenomenon, reported by both men and women. We report here on the development of a new measure to assess reasons for pretending. In three studies, using large diverse samples, we obtained a comprehensive list of reasons for pretending orgasms (Study 1; N = 46) and conducted both exploratory (Study 2; N = 416) and confirmatory (Study 3; N = 1010) factor analyses identifying six reasons for pretending an orgasm: feels good, for partner, not into sex, manipulation/power, insecurity, and emotional communication. Sexual dysfunction was correlated with frequency of pretending orgasms for reasons such as insecure, not into sex, for partner, and emotional communication. Usefulness for future research and clinical implications are discussed.
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Notes
Participants were excluded from the study for the following reasons: three due to being under 18, 14 for English not being their native language, two for denying pretending orgasm, two for zero sexual experience, and 74 for failing four or more of 11 attention checks.
Eighty-seven participants were excluded due to being under 18, 63 for English not being their native language, and 1453 for 40% or more of their answers being missing.
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Goodman, D.L., Gillath, O. & Haj-Mohamadi, P. Development and Validation of the Pretending Orgasm Reasons Measure . Arch Sex Behav 46, 1973–1991 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0928-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0928-7