Shere Hite

Shere Hite (born November 2, 1942 in St. Joseph, Missouri) is a sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work has focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite builds upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson, Kinsey. She also references theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970's, such as Anne Koedt's The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm.

Research focus

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.

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For example, Hite's work showed that 70% of women who do not have orgasms through intercourse are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation. 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.

Related Topics:
Orgasm - Intercourse - Masturbation - Clitoral - Sexual dysfunction

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