It seemed an odd pronouncement for someone once considered to be one of this country’s leading feminists, but then a little controversy — be it name-checking the jewellers Bulgari in one of her novels in exchange for “sponsorship”, as Weldon did in her last novel, or now suggesting dissembling in bed — never hurts sales.
But advocating the fake orgasm is problematic especially as she also suggests that women, having failed to get satisfaction, should enthuse at length — “You were magnificent”.
We’re not quite done yet: after the praise comes the champagne, if you please. What’s a quick nocturnal trot to the off-licence in exchange for what Weldon considers to be a recipe for marital happiness? Again, I suppose we should be grateful not to be instructed to scour the garden in the dark for laurels to fashion garlands for the champion.
“If you are happy and generous-minded, you will fake it and then leap out of bed and pour him champagne, telling him, ‘You are so clever’ or however you express enthusiasm,” Weldon writes in her latest book, What Makes Women Happy, which also warns high-flying career women that they may well end up single (so what? Being single can be absolutely great. It is certainly a million times better than being stuck with someone utterly unsuitable and comforting yourself, tragically, with “at least I’ve got a boyfriend”).
Weldon goes on: “Faking is kind to male partners . . . Otherwise they too may become anxious and so less able to perform. Do yourself and him a favour, sister: fake it.” She adds: “Eighty per cent of women only sometimes — or never — experience orgasm. Facts are facts and there we are. Deal with it.”
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Facts are indeed facts. And it is a fact that a healthy relationship tends not to thrive on lies, in bed or out of it.
Women spend quite enough of their time faking, or pretending, as it is. We have to pretend that the daily routine of childcare is never boring and that we are in fact Ma Walton, even though we suspect that we may secretly be Stephen Hawking.
We have to pretend to enjoy cooking and loading the dishwasher and tidying up afterwards. We have to pretend to like vacuuming and doing the laundry and cleaning the loo. We have to pretend that we skip to the drycleaners with joy in every step to collect his suits. We have to organise boring work dinners and sit through them pretending to be in transports of ecstasy.
Some or all of these things may indeed be enjoyable, in isolation or occasionally. En masse, on a daily basis, they can do your head in. But we go through the motions anyway and men feel delighted that we are a paragon of good housewifery, a “natural mother”, a multitasking genius, a marvel.
It feels very nice. But it doesn’t necessarily come as naturally as men seem to think it does: there is pretence involved.
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We have to sit at work pretending we’re not missing the children, or we have to sit with the children pretending we’re not missing work. We have to pretend that we are naturally exfoliated, buffed, highlighted, tweezed, plucked and veneered. We have to pretend that everything is pretty much effortless and that we are Superwoman. And all of this — every single thing — is, in Weldon’s words, primarily in order to be “kind to male partners”, to make them feel secure and cared for and loved.
I think it’s plenty, don’t you? If, on top of all this, we now take the retrograde step of believing that sex — the most intimate, truthful thing you can do with another person — is yet another aspect of our lives that needs to be faced with a grim fixed smile and false cheerfulness, then I honestly think we are doomed. I also think Weldon has lost her marbles.
Another fact is that Weldon is now 74 and possibly a little out of step with her younger sisters. I don’t know anyone who fakes it any more: faking it, as far as I am aware, went out some time in the late 1970s.
Women used to wonder whether they were entitled to the same satisfaction as men; in our post Sex and the City society, every adolescent girl knows for sure that she is. Weldon’s statistic is surely out of date.
Of course, every successful relationship has an element of self- sacrifice and give and take: you pretend to care about the football, he pretends he doesn’t want to cry with boredom watching you try on shoes. You pretend you don’t mind picking up damp towels from the bathroom floor, he pretends never to tire of your stories about what happened at playgroup. You pretend to like his obnoxious friend, he pretends to tolerate yours. And so on. And sometimes you pretend to be feeling mighty frisky, because he clearly is. This is fine, I think: it’s part and parcel of cohabitation.
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However, I draw the line at pretending to be frisky, going through the motions, finding them unsatisfactory, and then saying thank you for the thing that hasn’t happened.
What’s the point? An ego-boost for him and nada for you. And another thing: if you lie about it Mr Right is going to think that things are absolutely marvellous and that you couldn’t be more fulfilled. This is hardly likely to result in a change of approach. Which, I’m sure we’re all agreed, is a seriously bleak prospect.