Faking to finish: Women's accounts of feigning sexual pleasure to end unwanted sex

In this article, we explore women's accounts of consensual but unwanted sex, and how these accounts connect to feigning sexual pleasure. Interviews were conducted with 15 women and we employed a discursive analytic approach to examine the data. All women used discursive features (e.g. negation, hedging) to situate at least one of their past sexual experiences as problematic although all avoided the use of explicit labels such as rape or coercion. Furthermore, women commonly faked orgasm as a means to end these troubling sexual encounters. We argue the importance of considering women's accounts of 'problem' sex so these experiences are not dismissed.