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‘Faking’orgasm is often simultaneously normalised as a widespread practice and problematised as a troubling feature of heterosexual relationships (Miller, 2016). Thomas, Stelzl and Lafrance’s (2016) small-scale exploratory study on women’s accounts of feigning sexual pleasure to end unwanted sex generated a flurry of media attention which, for the most part, represented aspects of their key findings fairly and accurately. Specifically, this was that some women fake orgasms to end ‘problem’sex–sex which is unwanted (ie because it is painful, unpleasant, or boring) but consensual (ie they did not say ‘no’). As such, the paper attracted media interest internationally, but not controversy. As social scientists, we have reason to be curious about why this small study should receive such media attention–notwithstanding the high quality of the article and the research reported therein. Maybe it’s as simple as ‘sex sells …