The Disappearance of Shere Hite

In 1976, feminist sex researcher Shere Hite published The Hite Report. Based on anonymous survey responses about sex from thousands of women across the US, this groundbreaking book would become a catalyst for putting discussions of female sexuality in the spotlight. Despite selling millions of copies (with the documentary claiming it to be the 30^th bestselling book of all time), little is spoken about the book’s author today. Filmmaker Nicole Newnham strives to put Hite’s name back in the public sphere with documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite by giving an account of her fascinating life alongside the media backlash that would bury her name and reputation.

With Hite’s journals given voice by Dakota Johnson, the film begins with the author’s arrival in New York to attend graduate school in the 1960s. Alongside working as a model to scrape together some money, Hite became involved with feminist groups of academics whose research into femininity and sexuality were being dismissed by their (male) peers. When Hite steps in front of a TV camera and talks openly about masturbation and female genitals, it’s made clear to viewers why her work was revolutionary: it brazenly challenged gender norms, with her casually smoking a cigarette while she did so.

Newnham provides an intricate portrait of Hite. Her fiery personality, eccentricities and ambitions are all laid bare on screen for viewers to see. Even if her celebrity rise to fame is lingered on for too long at points, audiences nevertheless get a vivid impression of the documentary’s central figure.

More significant, though, is the media attention and controversy she faced after the release of The Hite Report and her books that followed. Interviews would become more heated as enraged male audience members challenged her while outlets criticised the validity of her scientific methods. Not only do these moments, as Hite claims several times throughout, confirm what she wrote in her books, but they also paint eye-opening parallels to society today in which male voices and the media attempt to silence that which challenges the status quo, ironically without having a proper understanding of what they’re criticising.

Shere Hite was a remarkably influential individual who changed the way society viewed sex. With her latest documentary, Newham rewrites Hite’s name into history alongside providing a scathing examination of the media that tried to erase it.

Andrew Murray

The Disappearance of Shere Hite is released in select cinemas on 12^th January 2024.

Watch the trailer for The Disappearance of Shere Hite here: