Photographed By Lauren Perlstein.It is a truth universally acknowledged that at one point or another, most women have faked an orgasm. Statistics vary, but an estimated 75% of us ladies have imitated climax when hooking up; that’s a lot of pretend pleasure. Plus, a 2009 study of 101 college women published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that of the 67% who faked orgasms, the vast majority did so during penetrative sex — which makes sense when you consider that only 25% of women can achieve orgasm from intercourse alone.
One of the hallmarks of a fake big-O? Noise. One 2010 study found that 66% of women in a sample of 71 made noise not because of their own orgasms, but rather to speed up their partners'. Of all the participants, 87% ’fessed up to moaning it out an effort to boost their partners’ egos. In fact, faking orgasm is so common that the Faking Orgasm Scale for Women (FOS) was developed to evaluate women’s self-reported reasons for doing so. The index is complete with such scientific-sounding markers as “Altruistic Deceit” (faking it to make your partner feel better) and “Sexual Adjournment” (faking it to get your partner to the finish line, so you can move on to something else).
Perhaps no one is more well-versed in the theatrics of pretending to climax than porn stars. So, to test your ability to distinguish a real orgasm from a fake one, Vice asked five performers to submit two videos each: one of a fake orgasm, and one of the real thing. Take a look — can you tell the difference? (The quiz, unsurprisingly, is very NSFW.)