The result of that cinematic quest is the filmThe Disappearance of Shere Hite, which just premiered in U.S.
Documentary Competition at theSundance Film Festival.
She first became acquainted with the authors taboo-shattering work,The Hite Report, as an adolescent.
Sex researcher Shere Hite in ‘The Disappearance of Shere Hite’Courtesy of Mike Wilson
What made the book so revolutionary when it hit stores in 1976 was its findings and methodology.
More important than intercourse, Hite discovered from the surveys, was clitoral stimulation.
It was a bombshell when it was published, Newnham says.
Director Nicole Newnham and editor Eileen Meyer attend the premiere of ‘The Disappearance of Shere Hite’ at Sundance on January 20, 2023 in Park City, Utah.Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images
And Shere Hite is the one who finally comes out and says thats not true…
The film delves into Hites remarkable development as a scholar.
She studied at Columbia University at a time when women typically werent taken seriously as academics.
She ignored the put downs of professors like the eminent Jacques Barzun and pressed onward.
To support herself, she did fashion modelling, occasionally nude modelling, and also shot commercials.
She loved representations of women from old film noir films and from pre-Raphaelite paintings.
And she refused to give that up.
She even got death threats.
Empowered and self-sufficient women were a threat to the existing order.
Fed up with those unrelenting attacks, Hite relocated to Europe.
She eventually renounced her American citizenship and later became a German citizen.
She died in London at the age of 77.
