Researchers have developed and validated a new measure aimed at understanding why women “fake it.” Say hello to the Reasons for Pretending Orgasm Inventory (RPOI).
Though researchers created the Faking Orgasm Scale for Women in 2014 to assess women’s motives, a team at Oakland University in Michigan said the scale only examined two types of activities: oral sex and sexual intercourse.
The new inventory includes more varied activity and was also developed by asking women why they might fake it, “rather than relying on researcher imagination,” explained Mark G. McCoy of Oakland University and his colleagues in their study, which was published in Evolutionary Psychology.
“Thus, the current measure was designed to address the limitations of the only other measure of this construct.”
Forty-eight women who participated in the research provided 303 reasons for why a woman might “fake it.” The responses were then whittled down to a list of 95 reasons with the help of five male and four female assistants.
Another 286 women then rated how frequently in the past month each reason applied to their experiences on a 10-point Likert scale that ranged from 0 (Never) to 9 (Every time).
Using a technique known as component analysis, the researchers further whittled down the list of reasons, removing 31 items that were redundant or not applicable.
The end result was the new RPOI.
“There are many aspects of human sexuality that can influence women’s sexual experiences and these same factors may play a role in how often and why women pretend orgasm,” McCoy and his colleagues said.
“The RPOI is useful for assessing the likelihood of pretending orgasm and the reasoning behind this pretense. As we come to understand more about the psychology of sexual activity, the RPOI will be a useful metric of an individual’s motivation behind sexual deception.”