I enjoy Halloween every year because I genuinely appreciate the fact that, much like many of my evenings out, it ends with — you guessed it — ween.
I’ll address the observable points first: yes, many women dress like total skankbombs on Halloween. I say if you’ve got it, flaunt it; and if you don’t got it, flaunt it anyway and you can scare small children in the spirit of the holiday and everybody wins. Even a slut so proud as yours truly doesn’t spend the other 364 days a year dressed like a hooker working a hard night on the block, so I embraced last night’s opportunity to slooze things up too. I busted out some red lipstick and an outfit trashy enough to let the itty bitty titty and her larger counterpart play supporting roles in my evening and was pleased to see the bars packed with similar amounts of cleave and liberally-applied cosmetics.
So all the girls were lookin’ hot last night, but the guys? Not so much. They tend to use this occasion to do themselves up to be considerably less attractive than usual. Let’s be honest: Napoleon Dynamite, Dwight Schrute, various blood-splattered creatures and dudes in half-assed drag getups are certainly not the kinds of images that have us scrambling to switch the batteries out of our remote controls. Plus, you guys deserve props for going out of your way to fuglify yourself in the name of costume authenticity. Regardless of the striking disparity in sexiness levels between the genders on Halloween, singles have as good a chance of getting laid as anyone because the social circumstances are in everyone’s favor. “Who are you supposed to be?” gives everyone the proper artillery to strike up a conversation with whomever they want.
There is a certain kind of person that adores Halloween because it allows for a chance to be someone that they’re not.
Such was the case with Product, a dude I fooled around with one Halloween way back in high school. I call him Product because he was always sporting an obscene amount of goop in his hair — possibly pomade, but Elmer’s glue would not have surprised me in the least — and was the kind of guy who thought himself to be groundbreakingly badass in his decision to go costume-free on Halloween. We were at a mutual friends’ Halloween party and he insisted on hooking up in the backyard rather than in any of the dozen empty rooms in the house (again with the badass thing).
Not only was he was a crap kisser, but he also tasted like a frozen tin can. I couldn’t put my fingers in his hair because it was exactly the texture of a city sidewalk covered in glossy nail polish. Thus, I went ahead and took the express train downtown to perform a good old-fashioned gobble bobble.
Five minutes later, I found out that I had been oh-so-wrong about Product. He was, in fact, wearing a costume and he was for sure playing a character that night. Yes, that particular Halloween, Product had chosen to disguise himself as Dude Having Orgasm.
He faked it.
His body sort of stammered and he thrust his hips at my face, but I didn’t think much of it and kept going. “J, stop. I came.”
What? No, you didn’t, and your special effects were about as spectacular as those featured in the Olivia Newton John cult classic Xanadu. Do you think I can’t taste the difference between my own saliva and your gentleman’s relish?
In all fairness, I was 17 and had yet to figure out the art of avoiding tooth-to-peen contact. Still, a male pretending to orgasm is akin to faking a laugh without a smile or claiming you’re single when your Facebook profile is saying otherwise. All a woman needs to fake an orgasm is a bit of dramatic flair, but a male orgasm needs some tangible evidence to back it up.
I figured Product was a special case, a story for the grandchildren someday. However, I had been hearing stories floating around lately that led me to investigate whether the male finale-fakeout is as uncommon as I thought.
Yeah, no. In an informal poll of 30 sexually active Cornell undergraduate males of varying sexual orientations, a staggering 21 said they had faked an orgasm before. Eight replied with some variation of, “Hell to the no! Why would I do that?” and one looked at me as though I had just insulted his entire family. In a poll of 30 sexually active Cornell women, 24 admitted to faking it at least once and six insisted that they’ve never been dishonest about climaxing. I’m certainly not among the latter group — I used to fake it all the time and became pretty good at keeping the falsies consistent and not too dramatic.
These results certainly encourage us to question why we’re all bullshitting each other in the bedroom. The most common reason cited is that we’re not feelin’ whatever our partners are doing and we don’t want to hurt them. It’s understandable; sex makes us incredibly vulnerable and criticism or perceived failure to perform — whether it’s within the context of a committed relationship or a one-time hookup — can sting bigtime.
Occasionally, women bust out with a falsie as a cue to wrap things up because things get dry docked (i.e. there’s not enough lubrication). Sometimes, we feel pressured by well-intentioned dirty talk and a few ladies mentioned that they fake it to make the sex feel more passionate for their partners’ sake.
It’s worth noting that the majority of reasons Cornell women cited for faking orgasms were with selfless intentions and with the interest of their partners in mind. How considerate — until you take into account that almost everyone I spoke to admitted that they’d feel deceived and hurt if they found out their partner was cranking out phonies. I mean, I interviewed my ex-boyfriend and caught myself questioning my talents in the sack when he admitted to faking it.
As for the dudes trying to fake us out, reasons cited were fairly straightforward. “Toothy head,” said Kevin. “I dunno, she was feelin’ it and I wasn’t,” said Ian. And my favorite: “She was lying there like a starfish. I got tired and didn’t care anymore.” All fair and valid reasons. In terms of logistics, most men were quick to confess that a condom does more than just block babies and scabies. Apparently, they’re also awesome for concealing any suspicious lack of juicy emissions. It makes perfect sense — it’s not like we’re springing out of bed to help peel that nasty thing off of your wrinklebeast when the whole sack session is over.
I pledged to stop faking it about a year ago. If my partner had ever found out I was being dishonest, he’d probably never trust me in bed again. Plus, I would tend to fake it on moves that were sort of painful or just not pleasurable, and when I wanted him to stop, I’d bust out with some thespian action. Well, it kept encouraging him to do those same moves, and I had to fake the same orgasms, and the whole cycle just folded in on itself and it just sucked. So don’t do that.
When you fake it, you’re doing yourself a disservice by failing to ask for, and encourage, the things your body responds to. You’re doing your partner a disservice by strengthening his repertoire of crap sexual moves. And most of all, every time you fake it, you’re forfeiting an opportunity to have a toe-curling, mind-blowing orgasm. If it hurts, tell your partner to stop. If you’re bored, try something else or, you know, don’t lie there like a starfish. Halloween is over now, so we can strip off the costumes, stop with the acting and get down to some good, old fashioned honest sex.
Jenna B. is a senior. She can be contacted at opinion@cornellsun.com. Bedroom Eyes appears alternate Thursdays.