Everyone knows the iconic scene from When Harry Met Sally where she's sitting at the table and she shows Harry how women pretend they're having an orgasm.

Well, somebody actually paid a scientist to study why women fake it.

The results are just what you would expect.

Women's fake screams of ecstasy in bed may have less to do with trying to protect the sensitive egos of their partners, and more to do with a gal's own personal insecurities and fear of intimacy, new research suggests.

Approximately 60 percent of women have faked an orgasm during intercourse or oral sex, according to Erin Cooper of Temple University, who has been studying these women to figure out why.

"This is something that we talk about happening in popular culture, in the movies and magazines," Cooper told LiveScience. "We know that this is pretty prevalent in our culture, but we don't know much about it from a scientific standpoint. That to me is a real catastrophe."

Here's the real catastrophe: Women suffer from breast cancer, cervical cancer, reproductive health problems — you know, real issues — that scientists could be studying more rather than wasting time and money on something that can be answered with a simple survey. As in, creating it with Survey Monkey and calling it a day.

Did someone really need to be paid to get these results?

Cooper surveyed 366 females ages 18 to 32 who had indicated they endorse faking orgasms, about their sexual habits, their reasons for faking it during a past relationship and their feelings about intimacy.

Many of these women said they faked it due to their own fear of intimacy; they also reported faking orgasm because they felt insecure about their sexual functioning, or because they want to get it over with.

I'm faking that I give a damn about this study.

John Edwards's fall from grace still isn't complete. You know why? Because the alleged contents of the sex tape still haven't been leaked.

Today, Edwards's criminal case was delayed until July.

Judge Carlton Tilley said he wants an agreement first on which documents will be released by prosecutors to defense lawyers and when that will happen before even thinking about scheduling a trial date.

"I encourage you to release everything," Tilley told prosecutors. "Let's get busy. Let's start turning stuff over."

Edwards accompanied his lawyers to the hearing, but apart from greeting reporters outside the building, he didn't speak or respond to questions about the case. One of his lawyers, James Cooney, also declined to comment.

Edwards pleaded not guilty this month to six felony charges related to money that went to hide Rielle Hunter, a videographer who followed his 2008 presidential campaign and later became his mistress and the mother of his child. Federal prosecutors say Edwards accepted contributions far above the legal limit in order to hide his affair, and helped in trying to cover up the payments by filing false campaign finance reports.

It's not clear exactly what the thousands of documents contain, and Edwards' lawyers said they couldn't proceed until they knew what prosecutors will be using.

So, what about the sex tape? Because honestly, that's what this is really about. But he won't have to answer those questions until the criminal charges are resolved. Boo.

About 17 percent of American adults have the herpes virus, but a rumor about the STD lead to the shooting of four people in Durham.

Brinton Marcell Millsap apparently shot three women and himself Friday night because of a rumor he had been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease."He did think that was the case, but it was a lie," said Anita D. Baker, the mother of one of the slain women, Alexandria J. Baker Pierce.

Pierce, 23, a rising senior at UNC Greensboro, made an impromptu trip to Durham on Friday to tell Millsap in person that the report that she had given him a disease was not true, Baker said. She left Greensboro in her green Honda Accord about 9 p.m. and picked up her friends, Amesha Alia Page-Smith, 24, and Adrianne Celeste Stevens, 22, both of Durham.

The seeds for the tragedy were planted on June 6,  according to one of the victim's best friends.

On June 6, Page-Smith was talking on the phone to her best friend, Adriene Williams, about the previous weekend when someone kept beeping in, Williams said.

Williams, who grew up in Durham but now lives in Tennessee, talked to Page-Smith often, she said..

The previous weekend Page-Smith, Pierce and Stevens had gone to a cookout together, Williams said. Either during or after the cookout, Pierce and Millsap had sex, Williams said.

As they spoke on the phone June 6, Page-Smith said Millsap and his friend kept calling her phone saying they had heard Pierce had herpes, Williams said.

"Brinton said if he goes to the doctor and his test results come back positive, he was going to kill A.J. (Pierce),'" Williams said, recounting her telephone conversation.

"At that time me and Amesha were just joking about it," Williams said. "And I am just like, 'It is not that serious. I mean it is not HIV.'"

It's not clear if Millsap had any reason, besides the rumor, to suspect he might have herpes. A blood test takes eight to 12 weeks (after becoming infected) and lupus can cause false positive readings, said Dr. Peter Leone, an infectious disease specialist at the UNC School of Medicine.

This tragedy highlights the importance of talking seriously about STDs before having sex and being honest about it.

• Photo credit: Jonathan Walczak from Edwards' 2008 campaign's Flickr account.

The News & Observer is reporting that former Senator, vice-presidential nominee, presidential candidate and beloved son of North Cackalacky, decided to take his campaign-finance violation criminal case to court because he didn't want to plead guilty to three misdemeanor violations, which would have meant six months in jail.

In case you've been under a rock, he's accused of using his campaign coffers to cover up his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter — who has since moved to Charlotte — and the fact that her daughter is also his daughter.

Listen, John, I don't give a shit what you used that money for, but I am pissed that you thought, and apparently still think, you're above the law and jail time.

Enjoy your jury trial, prick. If there's any justice in this world, you and all of the other prison-avoiding rich fucks in this world — I'm looking at you Dominique Strauss-Kahn — will end up picking up trash (actual trash, not hookers) along the side of a hot Southern road only to go "home" to Bubba and his butter fingers.

I do, however, hate every bit of this for your children; they deserve better than this brand of bullshit ... and for what? So you could get laid?

Here's more from the N&O:

Just before John Edwards was indicted Friday, prosecutors made a final offer: They would accept his guilty plea to three misdemeanor campaign finance law violations in the $925,000 cover-up of his affair.

With the deal, the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee would avoid a felony conviction - and almost certainly keep the law license that had made him wealthy.

The government wanted to dictate a sentence that would result in up to six months of prison for Edwards, even with the plea to lesser charges.

Edwards and his lawyers were concerned. They wanted the ability to at least argue to a judge for alternatives, such as a halfway house, weekend releases, home arrest or some arrangement that would allow Edwards to be with his school-age children. He is a single parent after the death of his wife, Elizabeth, in December.

Read the entire article, by J. Andrew Curliss and Joseph Neff, here.

— Rhi Bowman