The Hite Report

by Shere Hite

Ten years after the Hite Report exploded the myths surrounding women's physical sexuality, Women and Love offers a massive and moving documentation of women's profound questioning of their emotional relationships with men.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Sexuality, Psychology, Sociology, Science, Womens

638 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Shere Hite (born November 2, 1942, Saint Joseph, Missouri) is an American-born German[1] sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work has focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite builds upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey. She also references theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970s, such as Anne Koedt's The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm. After attacks on herself and her work, she renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German.

Hite graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. She received a masters degree in history from the University of Florida in 1967. She then moved to New York City and enrolled at Columbia University to work toward her Ph.D. in social history. Hite attributes the non-completion of this degree to the conservative nature of Columbia at that time. She later completed a Ph.D. at Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan) and another Ph.D. in clinical sexology at Maimonides University, North Miami Beach, Florida.

Shere Hite has focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them. Hite has criticised Masters and Johnson's work for uncritically incorporating cultural attitudes on sexual behaviour into their research. For example, Hite's work showed that 70% of women do not have orgasms through in-out, thrusting intercourse but are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation or other direct clitoral stimulation. Only 30% of the women in her study reported ever experiencing orgasm during thrusting intercourse. She has criticised Masters and Johnson's argument that enough clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm should be provided by thrusting during intercourse, and the inference that the failure of this is a sign of female "sexual dysfunction." Whilst not denying that both Kinsey and Masters and Johnson have been a crucial step in sex research, she believes that we must understand the cultural and personal construction of sexual experience to make the research relevant to sexual behaviour outside the laboratory. She offered the criticism that limiting test subjects to "normal" women who report orgasming during coitus was basing research on the faulty assumption that having an orgasm during coitus was typical, something that her own research strongly refuted.

Reviews

[Ronald Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was added to my collection while I was majoring in psychology at the University of Washington, and on the recommendation of my only girlfriend ever, Patty. Read the first time in 1976, while I was making a last gasp effort to convince myself that I was straight, the overall impression I got then from this book was that sex with women might be very complicated. Reading it now, after nearly 30 years of water under the bridge, the main message of the book seems to center around the individuality of sexuality, and how a mechanistic approach tends to diminish the pleasure for most. During this reading I thought often of the young women I've met in recent years, and wondered how things are different for them, compared to how it was for the young women of my generation… or my mother's.

[Karen Witzler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was reading about the new documentary on Hite. I saw her speak while at University.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023...

Book is available in pdf. online: https://tallirosenbaum.com/wp-content...


Just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover: Would have done D.H. Lawrence so much good to have read this after Sexuality and the Psychology of Love by Sigmund Freud.

Three star rating is simply what I give books read so long ago that I cannot remember all of the details. To women in my circle in the late Seventies, this book was very important; foundational.

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never got "the speech" from my parents. Instead my mom gave me this book when I was about 14 or so and said "read it in the dark". It was all downhill from there. :)

[Helmut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Statistik mal anders
In der NDR-Talkshow war neulich Erika Berger zu Gast. Sie wurde gefragt, welche Fragen ihr heutzutage, in einem aufgeklärteren Zeitalter, noch gestellt wurden. "Abgesehen von der ewigen Frage nach dem Orgasmus, der nicht vorhanden ist?" fragte sie gegen. Dieses Buch, geschrieben in den 70ern, hat daher wohl bis heute nichts an Aktualität verloren.

Letztlich handelt es sich um eine äußerst ausführliche Auswertung eines Fragebogens, der an tausende Frauen verschickt wurde, in dem recht unverblümt und direkt Fragen gestellt wurden, die vielen Empfängern ganz sicher die Schamesröte ins Gesicht trieben, selbst bei garantierter Anonymisierung. Und doch kamen die Antworten dann oft genauso unverblümt zurück. Das Zeitalter der beginnenden Emanzipation in sexueller Hinsicht ist in den Antworten spürbar; gleichzeitig aber die Hilf- und Ratlosigkeit vieler Frauen bezüglich ihrer eigenen Körperlichkeit.

Ein Teil des Buchs zählt einfach die statistische Zahlenauswertung der Fragebogenrückläufer auf; wie bei allen Fragebögen sind aber die "freien Kommentare" und selbstverfassten Hinweise der Beantworterinnen der interessantere Teil. Gruppiert nach den einzelnen Fragestellungen bekommt der Leser so seitenweise persönliche Erfahrungen mit Orgasmen, unterschiedlichen Formen der Masturbation und des Koitus.

Nun hört sich das schon "racy" an, doch man wird der Schilderungen überraschend schnell überdrüssig. Das gesamte Werk ist einfach zu lang, als dass es selbst für den interessierten Leser lange mitreißend sein könnte. Eine Kurzfassung davon, vielleicht halbiert, könnte aber durchaus Pflichtlektüre für jede Frau, aber auch jeden Mann, sein. Eben durch die persönliche Erfahrung, die viele Frauen hier aussprechen, statt von einem klinischen Wissenschaftler etwas erklärt zu bekommen, entsteht eine viel stärkere Mittelbarkeit und ein Einblick in das "echte Leben".

Erst durch Werke wie dieses wird jeder und jedem vielleicht klar, dass man nicht allein steht mit eventuellen Problemen, sondern dass viele urmenschliche Triebe und Verlangen allen gemein sind; und dass nur unsere prüde Gesellschaft ein Schweigen über Dinge erzwingt, die man mit allen Menschen, egal wo auf der Welt, teilt.

Viel gebessert seit den 70ern hat sich daran übrigens, glaube ich, nicht.

[Radhika · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sheer amount of research and detailed data/experiences in this book is incredible and it was done in the 70's! This is the information all women and girls should be sharing with each other, in families, in schools, and among friends. The book also goes into the complexities of the historical patriarchal impact on sex and sexuality as a whole, which was fascinating. If everyone read this, the world would be a better place.

[shanamadele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life.

[Constança · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este foi o melhor livro que li até agora sobre sexualidade humana. Contudo, é triste ver como a maioria das questões e problemas levantados pelas mulheres que participaram no estudo, em 1976, continuam a ser as mesmas questões nos dias de hoje. Qual foi afinal a herança deixada pela revolução sexual?

[Victoire · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Kinsey (which I later read) Hite was touted as the leading author... indeed she is. It's all here in real detail. Makes you actually think about 'what women want' before you go barging in with your assumptions.

Curious, Disturbing (in places) and erotic (passages are written in the tellers own hand)

A good one for young men of all calibres.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Groundbreaking (back then, anyhow) in that women enjoy and need sex as much as the next guy. Oh, and we fantasize about it too!

[Carlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband and I have been reading this book aloud together for the past month or so, the survey format makes it kind of a slow read. I think this book is generally very insightful. The idea was, a woman put together a comprehensive sexual survey and then had thousands of American women fill it out and mail in the responses anonymously. Great plan. The flaw was in the execution. When the author gathered all the results and put them into book form in order to share her findings with the public she couldn't resist putting her own little spin on things. She's pretty vindictive, and bitter towards conventional marriage, intercourse and straight people. That being said....the information is great and if you can avoid being dragged down by her biting commentary, reading the results of the women surveyed is very illuminating. I'm learning a lot.

[Marcus Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

About the sexuality of women. Could easily be condensed but it is definitely a landmark book --- very important in what it says. It explores women's attitudes to sex, what they do, and how they do it. Largely by getting hundreds of women to answer intimate questions about their sex life.

[Petra X played the long game - and won · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did anyone actually read this for statistics, in an objective, academic way? Or was it not just a very legitimate purchase of a really dirty book? (It was for me!)

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very eye-opening for the 16yr old me...

[Jacob Rabinowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

As entertainment, or as pornography, this book is unlikely to please. But as a psychological resource it is invaluable. Women are, in my experience, somewhat reticent about their sexual experience and preferences when speaking with men, even a man with whom they have long been intimate. This book, offers unparalleled insight into how it feels to be a woman in the limited but interesting ways considered. Though it is exceedingly repetitive (these are after all survey results) it is worth the effort to read it all, because this gives one an understanding of what is typical and shared in these female experiences.

Because of the absolute candor of the evidence offered, this book is quite timeless.

[Radiolab]

Radiolab asked listeners for their sex ed recommendations.

Cherri, a Radiolab listener, says, "As a mid to late teenage girl, it helped me to understand that my own sexuality was normal, that many women did not climax from vaginal stimulation, that I was not a freak, but that women's sexual response as portrayed by men was what was NOT normal."

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good way for men to understand a woman's perspective with so much uncensored first hand reporting of sexual experience. But, although still relevant, it is very much a snapshot of where the sexual revolution was in the early 70's.

[Cristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Estudio en las mujeres sobre su sexualidad femenina de los años 70. Tan diferente y tan parecido al mismo tiempo. Es grato leer las sensaciones y/o emociones de otras mujeres sexualmente hablando tan abiertamente y sin pudor. Interesante sin duda.

[Neal Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I learned a lot by reading this book. A worthwhile read into the elusive world of sex from the female perspective.

[Thrillers R Us · Rating 5 out of 5]

Typed as an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon during most of the 1960s, the counterculture movement had a big helping hand from the British Invasion that started approximately mid-decade. Among the many aspects of British culture arriving on United States shores that gained popularity (not only with fans of the female persuasion) was the burgeoning English rock band THE ROLLING STONES. Not scoring their first #1 hit on both shores of the Atlantic (and incidentally the first US #1) until 1965's (I can't get no) Satisfaction, the Stones have shown incredible stamina, still going strong after sixty years in the biz. Written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards and recorded by an all-male band, '(I can't get no) Satisfaction' is about corporatocracy and sexual frustration, the latter of which, of course, if THE HITE REPORT is consulted, is a barefaced lie.

THE HITE REPORT, first published in 1976, was a sexual revolution in six hundred pages, chronicling the answers to sensitive questions dealing with the most intimate details of women across America. An important read about women for women by women, and most any other reader could benefit from attentively reading it, too. By no means to be generalized as representative of ALL women, it's a great starting point for shaping personal perspective since there still is a comparative and competitive (male centered) view of sexuality [generally speaking--probably media and entertainment influenced], and a stereotyped way of defining sex. Consequently, through reading the other side, THE HITE REPORT is also good for understanding male perspective formation and cultural as well as institutional behavior and attitudes. As such, the report provides a personal, real, and important look at the (perceived & experienced) toxic effects of patriarchal society and patrilineal inheritance assurance, forced monogamy, and widespread influence and acceptance of Freudian model of female psychology.

As was said in DUNE, he who controls the spice controls the universe, and it seems from the report's analysis, that controlling (female) sexuality maintains the form of social organization that we know. That is, institutionalized acceptable physical congress, codified into many laws, seems to have seen use in earlier times to ensure population growth and with that consolidation of power, wealth, territory, and control, resulting in pronatalist bias in modern culture, creating social pressure on women. Has the world changed in the intervening years or have things turned for the worse? In light of there existing a whole spectrum of possible physical (intimate) relations, sex and physical relations must be redefined in a way that ceases to reflect oppressive and cultural stereotypes, starting with an overhaul of the limited vocabulary that corrals the congress to a rather linear and predictable outcome or conclusion, leaving one party more or less in lurch.

With references to scholarly greats like Kinsey, Masters & Johnson, Sherfey, as well as Berg & Street, THE HITE REPORT may seem antiquated; it does have a certain 1960s/70s feel to it, making mention of "hip, making a scene, dig it, communes, etc." THE HITE REPORT lives on the strength of the often explicit yet eloquent and honest answers to drastically direct questions, about 60 per questionnaire in different waves over a one year period. The vulnerability and honesty of the replies are engaging and often quite humorous without degenerating into cruelty or ridicule. Phrases like Vaginal destiny, lonely psychological limb, vicarious emotional climax, sexual dishonesty, and receptacle-participant parallax make THE HITE REPORT utterly readable and relatable in a world that has destroyed such candor in exchange for toxic positivity and group think. A topic not easily broached, female sexuality is the core of THE HITE REPORT and it's not a diamond in the rough--it's a gem. And it's here to stay. Come hell or high water, everyone can benefit from a readthrough of THE HITE REPORT, reader discretion is advised.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd been meaning to read this book actually since it first came out, after all, the topic is interesting & maybe even titilating, isn't it? So with the recent news announcements of Shere Hite's death containing the information that she was an undergraduate at the University of Florida at Gainesville during the same years that I was, I decided to finally getting around to reading - or more accurately, skimming - it. It's immediately clear why it caused a sensation when it first came out, in fact, if it had only come out recently, it would still cause a sensation among many segments of the population. & the titilation factor is real too. But it is difficult to read cover-to-cover; there is much repetition which accurately reflects the data & there are questions (topics) which vary in interest value. Like many which might interest women far more than men or vice versa. Anyway, I am glad I finally read it. There is much to learn in it & I think great value to the learning. My rating reflects the value I give to the books orininality & information content on the plus side & the tediousness of the presentation on the negative side. I do recommend this book but expect you will wind up skimming as I did.

[Jack Cienfuegos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todo lo que usted no sabía de una mujer y no se atreve a preguntar.
Pese a ser un libro añejo, hay cuestiones sobre la mesa que no cambiaron y siguen hoy tan vigentes como hace años atrás, pero la mayor virtud de este libro es que procede a desentumecer los planteos patriarcales y despertar la conciencia feminista en una época convulsionada como los años 70s; planteando toda una revolución y dándoles a las mujeres voz y voto. Poniendo en evidencia lo enquistada que esta la cultura machista y abriendo puertas hacía el tribadismo de par en par.
Lógicamente para un hombre heterosexual es de chocante sorpresa la de encontrarse con este libro que devela muchas cosas que no se tenían en cuenta. La sorpresa sería grata si quien se encuentra con este libro disfruta la lectura aprendiendo.
El puntapié a leer este libro me lo dio un capítulo de “En pocas palabras: el orgasmo femenino” y recomiendo a toda mujer iniciada en el feminismo.

[Carlos Dourado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Denso, extenso, profundo, e mais do que um estudo sexual, é um estudo sociológico e com conclusões muito interessantes.

Diria que uma versão condensada seria um excelente manual para a vida íntima, mesmo tendo sido escrito há já algumas décadas.

Resumindo: não é um livro para todos, o método foi bastante contestado, mas diria que as conclusões são... incontestáveis. A ler se gostar do tema e estiver preparado para uma leitura longa!

[Gavin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just bad science. You can read about some of the deep, invalidating methodological problems here and here.

Not sure if it's bad enough to go on my "Actively Harmful" shelf.

[Jeff Keehr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this many years ago. It was an examination of female sexuality. I might have read it because I wanted to know what women wanted. I don't recall if I learned anything. But I do remember enjoying the book, not as some sort of aphrodisiac but as a real look at what women think and have experienced.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written a while ago this gives thousands of accounts of women's first-hand lifetime experiences of sex.
It is sober reading.
If you want to hear real women talk about their real sex lives frankly this is still the best book I've found. I read this 'several decades' ago but it changed my life for good.
It will make sure you want to get the best out of yours! Life's too short!

[Sarah Rigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure Ms. Magazine offered an updated paperback version of this book as a premium when you signed up for a year's subscription. This would have been in 1995 or 1996? I'm not 100 percent sure, but it was around that time. I'm always interested in research about human sexuality, and the fact that this female-lead effort is less well known than the work done by Kinsey is interesting.

[Eric C Abrahamsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in the 70s. This was a pioneering book about freedom for women.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think others said it best that Hite was the Kinsey of the 70s

[Michelle Smart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was...interesting. Although it did offer insights as to how women feel about sex, my biggest takeaway was about 1970s US culture.

[izad]

REF: Ética para Celia de Ana de Miguel.