Simuler l’orgasme : dévouement, care et mystification

Abstract

In this paper, the author explores the phenomenon of female orgasm simulation in consensual heterosexual sex. She proposes to understand this phenomenon of self-alienation of desires and needs by women as a form of mystification as defined by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex. Articulating works in Beauvoirian phenomenology (Garcia, Froidevaux-Metterie, Young), on epistemic oppression and testimonial smothering (Doston) and the ethics of care, the author concludes that the simulation of orgasm can be considered as an existential fault, in the sense that it is a form of renunciation of freedom. However, if women share some responsibility for this form of oppression, they are not guilty of it, due to their particular situation in the patriarchal society where their possibilities of action (transcendence) are limited.