Rejecting the very idea of penetration as the sole definition of “real sex,” Shere Hite’s The Hite Report on Female Sexuality (1976) sought to understand how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them, using the clitoris as her critical lens. “Its not specifically just orgasms we are talking about here,” she wrote, “we are talking about a complete redefinition, or un-definition, of what sex is.”What I love most about Hite's work: she uses the personal accounts of women themselves, collected from long essay-style questionnaires, as the main text. Its very success lies in the glut of personal accounts. To know that women are sexually frustrated is one thing, but to read page after page of “Long foreplay makes me uncomfortable because I worry that I’m putting my man through too much work, when I know that he could come so much sooner if he let himself" is quite another. In response to the question, How have most men had sex with you?:“Most of them start kissing, petting, really getting off on the breasts—then the fingers in the vagina a bit, love talk, when we’re ready, cunnilingus and fellatio simultaneously, then I get on top, then he does. This is fairly standard with a lot of guys.” “I hate the usual pattern—kiss—feel—eat—fuck, simply because it’s usual. I like people to talk to me and moan a lot. I like when people are expressive and creative with me.” “Foreplay with constant pressure to have intercourse.”All but 5% of heterosexual couples, Hite discovered, followed the “reproductive” model: foreplay (touching, kissing, oral), followed by penetration, and intercourse (thrusting) followed by orgasm (especially male orgasm), usually defined as the “end” of sex. “This is a sexist definition of sex, oriented around male orgasm, and the needs of reproduction,” Hite wrote. “This definition is cultural, not biological.”Hite also found that 70% of women did not orgasm from intercourse alone. Although she stressed that orgasm was not the sole, or even necessarily, the main pleasure of sex, she asked her readers “Why do women so habitually satisfy men’s needs during sex and ignore their own?” For the majority of women clitoral stimulation is used for arousal purposes but not orgasm. A point Hite returns to again and again: through the reproductive model of sex, male orgasm is given a standardized time and place that is prearranged and preagreed during which both people know what to expect and how to make it possible. This places women in the position of having to ask for “extra” stimulation, something “special,” causing many women to feel guilty:“What I believe contributes to my not having an orgasm sometimes with my partner is my unwillingness to risk letting my partner know he/she is stimulating me in the wrong area or not going fast enough or hard enough or not taking long enough. When I realize I’m not going to climax right away and I think my partner is getting bored, I frustrate myself and stop.”“When I ask, and receive, I feel inordinately grateful. Yet I did what he needed to come to climax, and I didn’t feel he owed me anything.”“Out of all the information popularized about female sexuality since the ‘sexual revolution,’ the idea of clitoral stimulation has really made the heaviest impact. But I still feel my partner is doing something that for him is a mere technical obstacle to deal with before going on to the ‘real thing,’ and I resent feeling uptight about having him do that to me.” While the 1960’s may well have been, as Masters quipped, “the decade of orgasmic preoccupation,” Hite showed that this did not, and still does not, necessarily carry over into women’s actual sexual experiences. That is—an awareness of the mechanics, ease, and potency of female orgasm did not appear to have much effect on the way 70% of women fucked. “If women couldn’t ask for clitoral stimulation to orgasm, or do it themselves, they were unlikely to get it from the man they were with," wrote Hite. “Is the answer to the oppression and neglect of female sexuality and especially orgasm that men should lean to give (better) clitoral stimulation? Yes and no. Of course men should learn these things, but even more important, we [women] should find the freedom to take control over whether or not we get this stimulation.”
As I was reading this I kept wondering how things have changed since the mid seventies. But I have a sneaky suspicion I wouldn't like the answer to that.Gloria Steinem said that all women should read this book, but I would hope (???) that in 2014 a lot of women are familiar with the ideas within -- instead, I think men (especially those who like women) should read this book. And now (after a break, perhaps) I'd like to read the equivalent about men.Hite's ideas for a better world pretty much line up with my own imaginary utopia, and this is reassuring. Perhaps in an indirect way it was this large survey which informed my own hopes, because I've read quite a few feminist books, and Hite was no doubt influential. Unfortunately though, it hasn't dated as much as it probably should have. It's something I'd like young people to read as part of a 'comprehensive sex education' which, despite the name, is probably no such thing -- not until you've read this book, at least! As I said, I'd love to see a more modern survey, with better formatting. The formatting of this huge book is probably to do with the cost of printing, transporting and storing it, but I'd like to see a more attratctive book design, with the answers from women made distinct from Hite's commentary on the answers. There were many times when I had to go back and look for the speechmarks because I wasn't sure whether I was reading an answer or the commentary.Highly recommended, though perhaps be prepared to face a range of emotions, and therefore read a little at a time.
Do You like book The Hite Report (1987)?
Statistik mal andersIn 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.
—Helmut
More than 35 million copies sold worldwideSelected in 1998 as one of the one hundred key books of the twentieth century by the London Times and the World Expo."A frankness and directness not usually seen in print . . . Many female readers can closely identify with these intimate revelations." --Time"The first major literary breakthrough in this field since the work of Masters and Johnson." --The Literary Guildhttp://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCO...Thirty years ago a book by an unknown American writer took the world by storm. Its author, a young graduate student, had debunked one of the great myths about female sexuality: that most women should be able to have orgasms through sexual intercourse. The idea that something was wrong with popular assumptions about sex, not women, was so radical that it propelled Shere Hite to instant fame.Shere Hite: On female sexuality in the 21st century, The Independent, April 30, 2006Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/peo...Hite’s methodology to conduct her research on sexuality differed from those of other famous sex researchers such as Masters and Johnson or Alfred Kinsey. She did not use representative samples in her research, but instead opted for the individual questionnaire method. Some regarded this method to be invalid in a scientific sense. However, her findings came from real women and were thought by many to be much more valid than some of the surveys preceding them. The impact of Hite’s findings on our generation is far-reaching, and has changed the way we will continue to look at both male and female sexuality.Shere Hite and the Hite Reports on SexualityRead more: http://www.datehookup.com/content-she...
—Virgilio Machado
