Shere Hite: the woman who changed the narrative on the female orgasm in the 1970s

In nineteen seventy-six, researcher and former Playboy model Shere Hite published a groundbreaking survey on female sexuality that became one of the bestselling books of all time. According to The Conversation, Hite's study found that intercourse doesn't lead to orgasm for most women, but that clitoral stimulation was necessary—a finding she framed as evidence of inequality built into sex itself. The Hite Report sold fifty million copies worldwide, praised by feminist icons and read by men in factories and prisons encountering feminism for the first time. But by the nineteen eighties, right-wing political forces launched a coordinated backlash. Critics deployed biological arguments to dismiss her work, while conservative activists blamed feminism for economic hardship and social decline. As the media turned hostile, Hite fled the United States, settling in Europe where she died in twenty twenty—her work largely erased from cultural memory.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton