Self

Women Fake Orgasms Because They're Insecure

woman and man in bed

Meg Ryan's "big O" moment in "When Harry Met Sally" is the ultimate example of a woman demonstrating that she knows how to fake it.

And although many people wonder why some women pretend during sex, researchers from Temple University believe they have finally found the answer.

After surveying 366 women between the ages of 18 and 32, researcher Erin Cooper found that among the 60 percent who said they fake it, many of them admitted doing it because they were scared of intimacy or "insecure about their sexual functioning."

"Women who have a hard time getting closer to other people on an emotional level it seems now are also having a hard time getting close to other people on a sexual level," Cooper told LiveScience. "They are having a hard time across the board, and may be very much in need of intervention to help them out in another domain." MyDaily: Why My Husband and I Combined Finances in the Name of Love

Meanwhile, women who want to just get the sex over with are faking it because they have issues with people getting close to them and feel disconnected to their partners or even the experience itself, Cooper said.

Women aren't the only ones who have phony orgasms. About 25 percent of men confess that they do it too.

Cooper said her research is only the tip of the iceberg.

"This is something that we talk about happening in popular culture, in the movies and magazines," she said. "We know that this is pretty prevalent in our culture, but we don't know much about it from a scientific standpoint. That to me is a real catastrophe."

Since the habit can ultimately have a negative impact on a relationship, it's important for the women (and men) who fake orgasms to talk about it with their partners, according to Cooper.

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This article was originally published at . Reprinted with permission from the author.