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.
Shere Hite: 'We need to make a film about me'
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“I was saying that penetration didn’t do anything for women and that got some people terribly upset.,”
“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.”
www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/10/she-began-the-real-sexual-revolution-for-women-shere-hite-dies-aged-77
And long before twitter she was the subject of so much hate she had to leave the US.
The Hite Report reviesed by Erica Jong www.nytimes.com/1976/10/03/archives/the-hite-report.html
@suzanne_moore
Very sad to hear that Shere Hite has died. She was an extraordinary woman.
@libby_brooks
So very, very sorry to hear Shere Hite had died. She was a sexual revolutionary, a research pioneer, and utterly unapologetic about who she was. She was also, in my experience, incredibly generous to other women..
Sister Outrider @ClaireShrugged
Shere Hite dies aged 77. “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.”