Women will regularly fake orgasms to stop their men from cheating, a study has revealed.

Regularly pretending to climax is just one strategy women use to ensure their partners stay faithful, according to research produced in New York and Michigan.

'Mate-guarding' behaviour was found to be more common among those with suspicions their boyfriends and husbands might stray.

More than half of the women in the study admitted to having faked an orgasm.

This group also was more likely to have suspicions about their partners' fidelity than the women who said they had never faked an orgasm.

The report in The Archive of Sexual Behaviors said that 'women who perceived higher risk of partner infidelity were more likely to report pretending orgasm'.

Women who did this were also more likely to have used other tactics to try to keep their partners.

These included dressing up nicely for a partner, keeping tabs of his movements and telling off other women who look at him.

The report was compiled by Farnaz Kaighobadi of Columbia University in New York state and Todd Shackelford and Viviana Weekes-Shackelford, from Oakland University in Michigan.

The researchers surveyed 453 women, ranging in age from 18 to 46, who had been in relationships for at least six months.

Researcher Farnaz Kaighobadi told Live Science that research into the female orgasm and faking it was relatively rare.

She said: 'One particular reason that emerges from a lot of studies is "to keep my partner interested in this relationship", or "to prevent him from defecting [from] the relationship or leaving the relationship for another woman."'

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)