November 15
This is a reproduction of the classic text with a new introduction by the author. The Hite Report, first published in 1976, was a sexual revolution in six hundred pages. To answer sensitive questions dealing with the most intimate details of women's sexuality, Shere Hite's innovation was simple: she asked women—a lot of them—everything. And published the results.
One hundred thousand women, ages fourteen to seventy-eight, were asked what they do and don't like about sex; how an orgasm really feels, with and without intercourse; how it feels not to have an orgasm during sex; the importance of clitoral stimulation and masturbation; and to name the greatest pleasures and frustrations of their sexual lives, among many other questions.
The Hite Report declares that orgasm is easy and strong for women, given the right stimulation; that most women have orgasm most easily during masturbation or clitoral stimulation by hand; that sex as we define it is a cultural institution, not a biological one; and that attitudes must change to include the stimulation women desire.
Remembering Shere Hite (November 2, 1942 – September 9, 2020)
Dr. Shere Hite, 77, a feminist sex educator best known for her groundbreaking book The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, died at her home in England on Wednesday, September 9, 2020, after suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Born in Germany in 1942, Dr. Hite was recognized throughout the world for her work on psychosexual behavior and gender relations. She was director of the National Organization for the Women’s Feminist Sexuality Project from 1972 to 1978 and, since that time, she has acted as director of Hite Research International. In addition to The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, Dr. Hite was the author of The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality, and Sex and Business, among many others. Hite renounced her American citizenship in 1995 and the past 25 years in Europe and the UK. She will be missed dearly.
From The Guardian – 'She began the real sexual revolution for women': Shere Hite dies aged 77
The pioneering feminist Shere Hite, known for her research on female sexuality, has died at the age of 77. She was best known for The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, which has sold more than 50m copies since publication in 1976.
Based on the views of 3,500 women, it challenged male assumptions about sex by revealing that many women were not stimulated by sexual penetration. It also encouraged women to take control of their sex lives. It was dismissed as “anti-male” and dubbed the Hate Report by Playboy.
“I was saying that penetration didn’t do anything for women and that got some people terribly upset,” she told the Guardian in 2011.
She added: “I was the only sex researcher at that time who was feminist. I tried to extend the idea of sexual activity to female orgasm and masturbation.”
Hite’s husband, Paul Sullivan, confirmed that she had died at their home in Tottenham, north London, on Wednesday.
Hite was born in the socially conservative US state of Missouri, to her 16-year-old mother, and was raised by her grandparents.
While doing postgraduate research at Columbia University she posed nude in an advert for an Olivetti typewriter in the early 1970s. When the advert appeared in Playboy under the caption: “The typewriter so smart, she doesn’t have to be,” she backed protests against it.
Sustained criticism of her in the US, much of it highly personalised, led Hite to renounce her US citizenship in 1995.
She was married for 14 years to the German pianist Friedrich Höricke before the couple divorced in 1999. She lived all over Europe before settling in north London with her second husband, Paul Sullivan.
The writer Julie Bindel, who interviewed Hite in 2011 and stayed in touch afterwards, told the Guardian she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Bindel said: “Her work was groundbreaking – in many ways she began the real sexual revolution for women in the 1970s after the abject failure of the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s. In the 60s, women didn’t ever feel that they had the right to sexual pleasure. Shere Hite put women’s sexual pleasure first and foremost for the first time ever.
“She centred women’s experiences as opposed to seeing men as the default position and women as secondary. That really spoke to a lot of women about their own bodies, their own sexual liberation and sexual pleasure.”
SHERE HITE, PhD, is recognized throughout the world for her work on psychosexual behavior and gender relations. Hite has taught at Nihon University in Japan, Chongqing University in China, and Maimonides University in North Miami Beach, Florida. She was director of the National Organization for the Women’s Feminist Sexuality Project from 1972 to 1978 and since that time she has acted as director of Hite Research International. Dr. Hite is the author of The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality, and Sex and Business, among many others. Hite renounced her American citizenship in 1995 and resides in Germany.
