What image comes to our mind when we think of the word ‘scientist’ or ‘researcher’? It could be a scientist or researcher from any field, biology, sociology, psychology, software technology. But what image do we conjure up? Probably that of a dowdy, dreary, serious-looking man or woman, young or old, it doesn’t matter, but the demeanor will be rigid and official. Maybe wearing glasses, with a bit of forced humor, most definitely wearing something bland, pastel-shaded, formal business-like attire, maybe even a lab coat. This is what we conjure up when we think of a man or a woman as a scientist or a researcher.

But there was once a remarkable woman, so ahead of her time that even America at the height of the sexual revolution was unable to accept the fullness of her personality, her complex work and simple thesis. This is a review on the life and times of feminist sex researcher Shere Hite, and the newly released audiobook version of her ground-breaking survey on female sexuality The Hite Report which was first published in book format in 1976. The 478-page Hite Report is the 30th best-selling book of all time and the 19 hours 56 minutes audiobook is an attempt to introduce Hite’s findings to a new generation, the young women and men of today. An excellent documentary on her life “The Disappearance of Shere Hite” was released 2 years ago. While watching this film, made by Nicole Newnham, you’ll be intrigued enough by Shere Hite to google who the hell she is and whether she’s even real, just like Variety Magazine’s Jessica Kiang wrote in her review of the film.

Her name is also pronounced as 'Cher' Hyte but she called herself 'Sherry', and I’m going with that pronunciation.

It’s easy to take for granted the wealth of information on anatomy and physiology of sexual behaviors and patterns, that is available to us in year 2025. But a century ago, and that’s not too long ago, Freud, upended the field of psychology, psychiatry and sexology by saying that the physical /biological differences between men and women influenced their psychological development. In 1925, Freud, an Austrian neurologist and MD, and father of modern therapy, announced his clinical findings in a paper titled as ‘Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes’, a theory he expanded on in 1931 as well. In these papers he says that a woman’s neurosis can be traced to her failure to transfer her attachment as a child from her mother to her father, and from her leading genital zone clitoris to the other zone, vagina. He called clitoris analogous to male genitals as having masculine characteristics and vagina the organ with feminine characteristics. He said little girls discover masturbation of the clitoris during hygiene-related activities and grow resentful when they are stopped. A woman he said, recognizes the superiority of the male organ. “She clings obstinately to the expectation of one day having a genital of the same kind too, and her wish for it survives long after her hope has expired. ” “Penis envy” he said results in female neurosis.

Freud’s subjects were upperclass Viennese married female clients.

Next came Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a biologist who specialized in the field of insects, entomology, gall wasps in particular, and was studying the mating behavior of gall wasps when in 1938, the Association of Women Students petitioned Indiana University for a course for students who were either married or were thinking of marriage. Kinsey, a professor of zoology, got asked to coordinate the course that included topics such as sexuality, reproduction, contraception, etc., Kinsey found that there wasn’t much scientific data on human sexual behavior. In 1940, he joined a fellow academic Herman B. Wells on a research on the subject, and got funding from a committee that was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. By 1947, he founded Institute for Sex Research, in 1948, he co-wrote and published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, followed in 1953, by Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. The data and analysis and conclusions in these books was based on face-to-face in-depth conversational interviews with subjects about their sex lives, as well as observation of sexual activity by him and his well-trained team. Everyone interviewed was a volunteer. Approx. 5,300 mostly white men, including prisoners and prostitutes, over the course of 15 years contributed to the first book and approx. 6,000 (5,793) white, non-prison women took part in the survey for the second book. Kinsey had even encouraged his co-workers to engage in sex and filmed them.

Through statistical analyses, the incidence and frequency of sexual behavior was given by noting the age, decade of birth, religious persuasion and other factors and compared male and female sexual responses and investigated the factors for the similarities as well as differences between men and women’s sexual activities. Kinsey created a scale which determined where across a spectrum did a person’s sexuality lie - from hetero to homo and focussed more on the biology of sex. He noted that women achieve orgasms more frequently through masturbation than vaginal intercourse.

From 1957 to 1965, Dr. William Masters, a gynaecologist, and his research assistant Virginia Johnson, directly studied and measured physiological sexual arousal and activity in subjects by developing polygraph-like instruments and putting them on the 700 men and women who agreed to take part in their study in their laboratory. Dr. Masters paired the people who were strangers to each other as couples. Their research foundation was later renamed as Masters and Johnson Institute. Their original research is most known for establishing the 4 stages of sexual response cycle. They are considered pioneers of field of sexual dysfunction and therapy. As for women, they recognized that women had the capacity to have multiple orgasms. Initially, their subjects were prostitutes.

These researchers were pioneers in the field of sexology. But the fourth influence on defining and analyzing female sexuality is Shere Hite, a now-forgotten flamboyant feminist whose ground-breaking research The Hite Report redefined women’s sexual experience, putting women first and in control of their own pleasure.

QUOTE:

“The most mysterious of organs the vagina, the vulva and uterus, and especially the clitoris the names and information about these organs was suppressed for long periods in western history. For centuries it was said women have difficulty in having orgasm, men’s orgasms are so much stronger their sexual organ is bigger. None of it is true. But for centuries these ideas were considered unquestionable. The most common means to orgasm has no name at all. There has been no word for clitoral stimulation for most of western history shows how clearly culture has tried to stamp out knowledge of women’s bodies and to stamp out women’s enjoyment and pleasure.” Shere Hite

“Stereotypes about women’s bodies and sexuality are frequently pornographic and used to sell everything from cornflake to motorbikes. But these media images are not us, not really us, they have nothing to do with who we are, we are very diverse, very different yet very similar, even though we are of every race, age, and body shape. Women today re busy reclaiming the space to breath and experiment, and discover what sexuality might be like, how we might like to express ourselves, after the endless public distortion, and sometimes public violence we’ve experienced.” “Clitoral stimulation isn’t some lesser form of sexuality”

This is where Hite’s fierce personal opinion and findings of the survey clashed with orthodox views. I believe that FOR CENTURIES WOMEN’S BODIES AND SEXUAL EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN DEFINED, REGULARIZED AND WEAPONIZED BY RELIGION, POLITICS AND CULTURE. Their bodies and selfhood has been used for reproduction, honor and servitude and this status quo includes what happens in the bedroom.

QUOTE:

"We have been adapting our bodies to male sexuality for centuries."

"We have to take ourselves out of that situation, see ourselves just for ourselves, and take that knowledge relate to other people but doing things that are right for us." Shere Hite

Originally from Missouri, she was a PhD. student of social history at Columbia University, New York, where she supplemented her studies by working as a model for advertisements, paperback book covers, and appeared in Robert Mc Ginnis’ famous illustrated Bond artwork as both the girls next to Sean Connery in ‘Diamonds are Forever’, and posed nude for Playboy. With strawberry blonde hair, made-up face with a 40s Hollywood avatar and raspy, breathy voice, she didn’t fit the mould of a typical researcher. She wore glasses alright, but there was nothing conventional about her.

We find out in the documentary, that she dropped her doctoral program, and without any funding or backing, began making and printing a questionnaire in a printing press that published anti-war material in the daytime and gave her permission to use the equipment at night. The printing press workers taught her how to use the machine and off she went. She brought her own ink, the shade of her nail polish, a pale red and paper, lots of paper. And then she distributed the questionnaire by hand with a friend on a motorbike in various NYC boroughs, like the Bronx, Brooklyn, mailed it to women’s magazines, institutes around the country. Of the 100,000 distributed, she heard back from 3000 girls and women ages 14-78. In random sampling the number of respondents is always low and 3000 feels like a good fat number to tabulate a data. She had a background in statistics: she had done her master’s thesis on Methodology of the Social Sciences. Her intricate way of deciphering the free-flowing answers women had given into statistical reality is given in Chapter 9 of the audiobook. All of this took 4 years. To me, she’s a social scientist.

While the 2024 audiobook version of The Hite Report published by Post Hypnotic Press under CEO and publisher Carlyn Craig’s guidance, has a narrator Karissa Vacker to voice Shere Hite throughout the book. In the preface, Vacker narrates Shere Hite's reasons for the research as she did in the paperback in 1976. I’m sharing it here:

QUOTE:

006 preface (written by Shere Hite, Feb. 1976): 02:40

"men have never been asked how they feel about sex. - 00:16

researchers looking for statistical norms wound up telling women how they should feel as rather than asking how they do feel - 00:25

female sexuality has been seen as response to male sexuality and intercourse, there has rarely been acknowledgement that female sexuality may have complex nature of its own - 00:21-00:40

; this is not to imply that the only thing that stands between a woman and satisfactory sex is realization of her own physical needs." -01:03

“Sex as we define it is part of whole cultural picture. A woman’s place in sex mirrors her place in the rest of society. this book represents what the women who answered said, in their own words, and in their own way. The intention is to get acquainted and share how we have experienced our sexuality, what we feel about it, and to see our personal lives more clearly, and thus redefine our sexuality and identity as women. what they like and what they think of sex. This book presents women do it their own way. - it also presents a new theory of female sexuality which unfolds gradually chapter by chpater and can be best understood by reading the book in chapter order. [Preface, Shere Hite, The Hite Report, Feb. 1976 as given in audiobook- 01:55]

What follows in The Hite Report is a deep dive into each of the 3000 women’s views and complaints on masturbation, orgasm, intercourse, clitoral stimulation, lesbianism, sexual slavery and sexual revolution, It has a chapter on older women and Hite redefines sex beyond reproductive function and men’s desires. The survey style (anonymously giving your basic demographic details and writing your answers using your own words at your leisure in the comfort and secrecy of your chosen environment and then having the choice to mail it) allowed women’s thoughts and feelings to enter the statistical and scientific landscape of sexology. I thought this was a huge accomplishment. The original questionnaire is included in the audiobook and the reader can use it to become more self-aware.

As we learn in the documentary, the report changed Hite’s fortunes, she moved from a cockroach-infested small basement lodging to a suite in Hotel Alden and then bought a first floor apartment on Fifth Avenue in NYC, filling the place with decorative art and assistants as she continued her research - this time focussing on male sexual experience. Meanwhile she lived her life as a bisexual celebrity and sexual commentator:

QUOTE: GERALDO REVIRA - TALK SHOW CLIP - ABC’s ‘Good Night America’ Episode #28 aired on 3rd March 1977: [late-night newsmagazine he produced and hosted; Dr. Mary Calderone a pioneer sex educator and Dr. Lea Schaeffer, psychotherapist and author, and feminists Kate Millet and Norma Swenson].

“It’s great [the book]. It gave women scope to say what’s been bottled up in their hearts for centuries. For the first time women were invited to think about something that they have put out of their mind, if they are unhappy or if they are unsuccessful, or if they can’t orgasm, they fake it for their husbands, then the society and husband says you are a failure, and here comes this opportunity saying what they felt. Believe me, it’s pretty devastating what women feel.” Dr. Mary Calderone

“I think the book gives you different ways of looking at things. I think it frees people up of tremendous burden, for instance, it says that 70% of the women do not orgasm during intercourse, now this does not mean that women do not enjoy intercourse, it just means they don’t orgasm during intercourse, and they have other ways of experiencing orgasm. Now this finding frees a lot of women who thought there was something wrong with them, that if they didn’t experience sex and orgasm in the way that was considred the absolute perfect and best, they felt like there was something wrong with them, which put a tremendous burden on the women, put a tremendous burden on the men too, that they all felt like they had to accomplish something. I think the book also frees women to be responsible for their own sexual pleasure, it gives them the opportunity to self-stimulation as a way of learning about themselves and there really is no better way for women or men for that matter to learn about their own bodies and their own feelings as to learn about their own bodies and feelings and women have historically been discouraged to doing it themselves.” Dr. Laura Schaeffer

[timecode: 09:40-14:12]

The documentary contains this serious revelatory discussion on Geraldo Rivera’s talk show, but it also contains examples of negative reporting that was done on her in the press and on TV. In fact, there are clips of many interviews where the host and fellow guests are childish, undignified or downright rude to Hite and offensive and aggressive on the topic. Even in press conferences, it is obvious that reporters didn’t know what to ask her or make of her or of the topic and her place in it. There was even an attempt to turn her into a punchline, a subject of derision and mocking when Marty Povich invited the cab driver she had a fracas with. That kind of thing is just not done. Would the women of The View or the men of Flagrant invite some Uber driver to put a guest down? Shere Hite Research Foundation site contains links to the youtube videos of her interviews and recordings but snippets of the Oprah Winfrey show where Hite faced an entire audience full of angry men - young and old, of all colors, is something you’ll have to see in the documentary. Everything is a trigger and it’s weird that something that is supposed to bring two people closer was interpreted as alienation, separation and disenfranchisement of men from women’s sexual lives.

I think it all came down to the fact that Hite just didn’t look the part of what society has been conditioned to expect in a serious researcher or a serious woman. A serious thinker cannot be saucy, alive and vulnerable at the same time.

Shere Hite was a colorful vibrant laughing researcher embracing her feminine self while having an argument over equality in the sexual experience for both men and women. She also had the mental wherewithall to put her ideas in political and historical context. She produced a bestselling survey report and was an exacting, demanding individual. America was not ready for such an intellectual. America was not ready for a woman as a well-rounded human being.

I love this line from Jessica Kiang’s review of the documentary published on The Variety Magazine site on 26 Jan. 2023: “In reclaiming Hite from obscurity, the film takes its cue from a subject who saw no contradiction between intellectual/political seriousness and a playful love of beauty and flamboyance in everything from home decor to dress style.”

“You never see a portrait of an intelligent woman with an intelligent face and at the same time a vulva - a woman complete, with sexuality” [Iris Brosch, photographer, who took her nude photographs in 2000s/2010s; The Disappearance of Shere Hite, 2023. timecode: 1:49:00]

Hite weathered the increasing criticism on her methodology and findings. That random sampling was a snafu for critics, as was her inability to gather demographic info on some of the respondents, even though they were of diverse backgrounds and races. Plus, I feel she could’ve positioned the statistical part of her analysis a bit differently, maybe.

For example, Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies was published by Trident Press U.S. in 1973. It was probably the first book of its kind. Her book Men In Love was published by Hutchinson UK in 1980 and Women On Top by Random House in 1992. All contained interviews or feedback from anonymous contributors who explained in long-form narration their real-life experiences and erotic fantasies. She was quick to say that these books were not scientific reports. Her critics in the media fought with Hyte on her findings on the basis of proportion of sample surveyed and her statistical analysis. Maybe if she’d just said the report speaks for itself, just like any other ‘work in development’ the critics wouldn’t have attacked her the way they did.

Hite was married twice: 1st to pianist Friedrich Höricke with whom she lived in her 5th Avenue flat and later on in Cologne, Germany. Paul Sullivan was her second husband. They lived in Tottenham, North London. During the marriages she maintained intimate contact with female friends.

She had corticobasal degeneration, a rare neurological disorder, and died from complications of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in Sept. 2020. I think she was a fascinating woman with a remarkable sense of style who lived a full life and enriched the world’s understanding on female sexuality.

Before calling time on this review, I’d like to mention a woman from a century ago. Long before Shere Hite gave women’s sexual feelings a space, a voice and a platform, Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher (an assistant professor of personal hygiene at Stanford in 1910 did just about the same by getting responses on a 9-page sex questionnaire titled ‘Marital Relation’ from 45 married Victorian women between 1892 to 1920. The survey had open-ended questions aimed at drawing out feelings and experiences. She entitled the responses as “The Statistical Study of the Marriage of Forty-Seven Women” but she never completed it, never made any observations on the data nor did she publish it. It wasn’t until 1974, when The Mosher Report was introduced in Carl Degler’s article for The American Historical Review that her work posthumously came to light. Majority of those surveyed 45 women enjoyed sex, had orgasm and believed enjoyment of both sexes was reason to have intercourse. Her effort is probably a precursor to Hite’s emphasis on equality between men and women’s right in deriving equal pleasure from sex.

But as Kara Platoni writes in the March/April 2010 edition of Stanford Magazine, “Ultimately, Mosher's story is deeply ironic: She was a staunch feminist who remained aloof from sisterhood, a woman who rigorously researched sexuality and marriage yet probably experienced neither, a pioneering scholar who longed for recognition but did not live to enjoy it. Today there is an often well-rewarded place in our society for awkward overachievers, but Mosher struggled her entire life with her ungainly intellect and with being a woman in a man's research world.”

For those living in year 2025, and want to read The Mosher Report, can check out Kathryn Allamong Jacob’s article for American Heritage Magazine’s June/July 1981 edition Vol. 32, Issue 4.

I will encourage girls and women listening or watching right now to have a look at The Hite Report audiobook and the documentary “The Disappearance of Shere Hite”. Consider them the safe space in which frank opinion and complaints of anonymous women can reassure you that being satisfied is not a dirty word.