Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

appalachiablue

(41,055 posts)
Thu Sep 10, 2020, 10:51 PM Sep 2020

'She Began The Real Sexual Revolution For Women': Shere Hite Dies, Aged 77

Source: The Guardian

By Matthew Weaver.

Reviled by Playboy, her 1976 study of 3,500 women challenged male assumptions about sex. 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...

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/10/she-began-the-real-sexual-revolution-for-women-shere-hite-dies-aged-77

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
'She Began The Real Sexual Revolution For Women': Shere Hite Dies, Aged 77 (Original Post) appalachiablue Sep 2020 OP
... littlemissmartypants Sep 2020 #1
KNR and thank you so much for posting this. niyad Sep 2020 #2
The same occurred to me about losing these 2 influential women. appalachiablue Sep 2020 #3
I never realized she was just a few years older than me. sinkingfeeling Sep 2020 #4
K&R Solly Mack Sep 2020 #5
A revolutionary with big impact. JudyM Sep 2020 #6
So very sad to read that she had Parkinson's and A.zheimer's. niyad Sep 2020 #7
She did another work interviewing men. MicaelS Sep 2020 #8
Wow. Just seeing this... BumRushDaShow Sep 2020 #9
She was just giving voice to what most women already knew themselves but didn't talk about. CTyankee Sep 2020 #11
Agreed. Delphinus Sep 2020 #12
Thank you, Shere Hite. crickets Sep 2020 #10

niyad

(112,435 posts)
2. KNR and thank you so much for posting this.
Fri Sep 11, 2020, 12:00 AM
Sep 2020

Sad losing Dame Diana Rigg and Shere Hite at the same time. The

MicaelS

(8,747 posts)
8. She did another work interviewing men.
Fri Sep 11, 2020, 10:36 AM
Sep 2020

Amazing how many men she interviewed were sexually attracted to their mothers.

BumRushDaShow

(127,312 posts)
9. Wow. Just seeing this...
Fri Sep 11, 2020, 10:49 AM
Sep 2020

I haven't heard her in the news in a long time... So much that feminists were trying to do to bust the myths, were couched as being "salacious" by the media and it was always (and still is) an endless battle. Just like the earlier compiled publication - "Our bodies, Ourselves".

R.I.P.

CTyankee

(63,771 posts)
11. She was just giving voice to what most women already knew themselves but didn't talk about.
Sat Sep 12, 2020, 01:54 PM
Sep 2020

She gave lots of women validation for what they knew to be true.

Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»'She Began The Real Sexua...