Madness

I Faked An Orgasm and Earned the Nickname “Rambo” For My Troubles

Kwame, if you’re reading, don’t think I forgot!

Y’all swear “I never told you” so many things, but over the past 11 years on this blog, you’ve heard about the inner workings of my womb, mammary glands, follicles, nightmares… So what’s a story about the Big O between friends?

If you didn’t hear me shouting about this on my other social media channels already, I was on the Science Vs. podcast a week ago repping Adventures From the Bedrooms of African Women. How did I get on the show, you ask? Same way I find myself in the swirling center of all the other shenanigans I’ve been a party to: By saying “yes”.

The producers of the show contacted Adventures looking for perspectives from African women about our experiences (or non experiences, to be precise) with orgasms so that they could pit those anecdotes against the science to either confirm or debunk. I think the producer asked me if I’d ever faked an orgasm. Honestly, I can’t remember how we got onto the topic of one of the weirdest nights of my sexual life, but you can listen to part of the story here.

Press play to listen

Did you hear those sound effects? Gbugbugbugbgu…

How did I get there?! It started innocently enough. I was hanging out with my friend who will now be known as Kwame at his apartment that he shared with 4,503 other dudes. Like 43% of the Black male population in Atlanta, he was an aspiring rapper, so for research we were watching BET. But he wanted to be different, conscious and futuristic with his message, so we changed the channel to SyFy. Despite the fact that he was sharing rent and utilities with four thousand other people, the boys never turned on the heat. There was a single blanket in the living room and I was invited to sit under it with Kwaku. We snuggled together sharing body heat.

 One thing led to another. You know how it is when you’ve been hanging out under a blanket with your homeboy that you’ve known since you were 13 – the one who is NOT your type and to whom you’ve NEVER entertained intimate thoughts or fancies. Well yes, the next logical step was to accept his shy invitation to accompany him to his twin bed and see where the afternoon takes you.

I’ll skip over the mechanics. Anyone on a blog about marriage and motherhood can imagine the minutia of what took place next. I will tell you that it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t good, either. It was like the oatmeal my grandmother used to make: bland, unsatisfying and sufficient enough to answer the question of whether or not you’d eaten with honesty. But I enjoy it? No. And from that day on, I vowed never to voluntarily have sex with anyone else for whom I did not have more than platonic feelings for.

But bless Kwame’s heart. He did as much in his power to make it enjoyable. Unfortunately, he was no match for me coitally. So after we writhed about awkwardly and erratically like a pair of salted eels, I devised a way to make the bad sex end. I’d just declare that I’d reached climax. To do this convincingly, I cast my mind back to some of the erotic scenes I’d watched in 90s rom-com-thrillers, invoked my best Sharon Stone, tensed my limbs and began to quiver.

Except the gentle “quiver” I was feigning resembled more of a violent seizure. You have to understand – as I said in the podcast, I had never had an orgasm before and didn’t know what one was supposed to feel or look like.

So there I lay, convulsing and shuddering and shaking and carrying on while Kwame hovered above me, confused and concerned.

“What are you doing?” His voice was high pitched, tinged with alarm. “Are you ok????”

“Yes…yes! I’m comiinnngg!”

I don’t remember what happened next, but my goal had been achieved: the sex came to a swift end. I refused his offer to walk me to the door. I knew the way out.

A few days later, I returned to Kwame’s house. As I said, he was my friend. He greeted me enthusiastically at the door and invited me in. Of course, he couldn’t offer me a snack or a drink, because he lived with 5,547 other Black men and there was never food in the house.

“So I told my brother about us,” he chuckled.

“Oh yeah?” (Internal eye roll. Men can’t keep anything to themselves.)

“Yeah! I told him how you were shaking during your orgasm like a bazooka and he was like ‘Ei! What Rambo chick is this!’ So now we call you Rambo.”

So.

Now.

We.

Call.

You.

Rambo.

It is well.

So, what have we learned from this? Is the lesson not to sleep with your friends? Is to learn how to fake better? Is it never to fake at all? Is the lesson that if you MUST fake an orgasm, to ensure that the final result doesn’t earn you a disgraceful nickname after an 80’s action hero? You be the judge.