Well-paid wives more likely to fake it in the bedroom
CHAPS, if your wife or girlfriend earns more money than you it might be time to sit down for a little chat.
Not because there’s anything wrong with this financial situation – but because they may not be satisfied in the bedroom.
Women who make more than their male partner are twice as likely to fake an orgasm, a study has found. Researchers put this down to trying to mitigate their partner’s threatened manliness.
They also found women who believe their partner suffers from fragile masculinity are less likely to communicate their sexual desires for fear of damaging his ego.
The team from the University of South Florida recruited more than 600 women for their study. Those in sexual relationships with men were asked to complete an anonymous survey about their sex lives.
Results showed that women who made more money than their partners were twice as likely as those who didn’t to fake orgasms. Women who earned 60 to 80 per cent of a couple’s entire income faked it the most – around 35 per cent of their orgasms – and also reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction. For the second part of the study, women were asked about how precarious they thought their partner’s sense of masculinity was. The researchers discovered that the more a woman thought their partner was insecure about his ‘status’ as a man, the less likely they were to communicate about goings-on in the bedroom. This, in turn, predicted a lower rate of orgasms.
Writing in the journal Social Psychological And Personality Science, the authors said: ‘Open and honest communication is important in sexual relationships. But while [this] can benefit women’s sexual outcomes, it risks threatening men’s confidence and esteem.
‘In study one, women were more likely to report faking orgasms when they earned more money than their partners – thereby threatening men’s masculine status as the breadwinner – suggesting they may exaggerate their sexual pleasure to mitigate their partner’s threatened masculinity.
‘In study two, women’s perceptions of their male partner’s precarious manhood predicted both their sexual satisfaction and orgasm rates. Together, these studies suggest a recursive, reinforcing cycle of unfulfilling sex.’
Lead author Jessica Jordan said: ‘Women are prioritising what they think their partners need over their own sexual needs. If a woman is concerned about threatening her partner’s manhood, that could lead to a breakdown of communication. When society creates an impossible standard of masculinity to maintain, nobody wins.’