A second sexual revolution
Until Shere Hite’s Report, even the most daring sexologists refused to listen to what women desired and hated in sex- by Rosa CampbellRead on Aeon.
In 1972, Shere Hite, a former Playboy model turned feminist sex researcher, launched a groundbreaking survey to study women's sexual experiences. She distributed 58-question forms in Manhattan, asking women about their orgasms, sexual freedom, and whether they felt sex was political. The responses formed the basis of her 1976 book, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, which became a bestseller with 50 million copies sold. Hite's work was revolutionary because it prioritized women's own voices over traditional assumptions about female sexuality. The survey revealed that 70% of American women could not orgasm from penetrative sex alone and often relied on clitoral stimulation. Many women also admitted to faking orgasms, highlighting widespread dissatisfaction despite the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s.
The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s brought significant changes, including the widespread availability of the birth control pill (used by 10 million women) and the introduction of no-fault divorce laws in California in 1969. These changes allowed women greater sexual freedom and independence from loveless marriages. However, Shere Hite's research found that the revolution had not improved the quality of sex for many women. Instead, it often reinforced traditional scripts where male orgasm marked the end of sex, and women felt pressured to comply. One woman described the typical sexual encounter as a mechanical process where the man's pleasure dictated the pace. Even popular books like The Joy of Sex (1972) by Alex Comfort reinforced the idea that penis-in-vagina sex was the ultimate goal, despite evidence that many women needed clitoral stimulation to orgasm.
Shere Hite's path to feminism began when she worked as a model and encountered sexist attitudes, such as an advertisement for Olivetti typewriters with the caption 'The typewriter is so smart that she doesn’t have to be.' This prompted the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to protest, which inspired Hite to join feminist campaigns and consciousness-raising (CR) groups. CR groups were small gatherings where women discussed how sexist society shaped their lives, often leading to a 'click' moment where they realized their personal struggles had political roots. However, Hite noticed that even in these groups, women rarely discussed sex openly, treating it as a private or shameful topic. To break this silence, she developed an anonymous questionnaire to gather candid responses about women's sexual experiences.
Sigmund Freud's theories on female sexuality, published in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), argued that women's sexual pleasure should shift from the clitoris to the vagina as they mature. Freud claimed that clitoral orgasms were 'immature' and that vaginal orgasms were the hallmark of 'mature' femininity. He suggested that women who could not orgasm vaginally suffered from psychological issues and recommended psychoanalysis as treatment. By the 1970s, conservative neo-Freudians reinforced these ideas, telling women that their inability to orgasm during intercourse was a sign of neurosis or rejection of their feminine role. Many women internalized these beliefs, with one telling Hite that her therapist helped her see her clitoral orgasms as 'selfish or infantile.'
Shere Hite compared her work to earlier sexology studies, such as those by Alfred Kinsey and William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Kinsey's Kinsey Reports (1948 for men, 1953 for women) documented sexual behaviors but did not explore women's feelings about sex. Masters and Johnson, in their 1966 book Human Sexual Response, studied the physical aspects of sex through laboratory observations, concluding that all female orgasms were clitoral in nature. However, they did not advocate for direct clitoral stimulation, instead suggesting that women could orgasm indirectly during intercourse. Hite criticized their work for reflecting their own cultural biases, including a commitment to heterosexual marriage and a reluctance to challenge traditional sexual scripts.
Hite argued that sex itself was inherently sexist, reflecting broader societal inequalities. She noted that in 1976, women earned only 60% of what men earned for the same work, and she drew a parallel to sexual dynamics where men were rewarded with pleasure, services, and respect while women were expected to prioritize male satisfaction. She found that society still dictated that women's greatest sexual pleasure should come from penetrative sex, reinforcing a power imbalance. In a 1977 interview, she stated, 'Sex is sexist … women’s sex lives clearly reflect their second-class position in society.' Hite's work highlighted how sexual inequality was not just about access to sex but about control over how sex was experienced and defined.
While Hite's *The Hite Report* focused primarily on white women's experiences, Black women and women of color also responded to her survey and shared their unique perspectives. One Black woman noted that Black women were often seen as lacking beauty, while a Chinese American woman observed that racial identity influenced her sex life, remarking sardonically that 'Chinese is “in” this year.' These responses revealed how race and racism intersected with gender and sexuality. However, Hite's study did not deeply analyze race, and critics later pointed out that the women's liberation movement often centered white women's experiences, making racial issues invisible. Black feminists argued that the movement's universal notion of 'woman' often excluded women of color.
