Ever heard of Shere Hite? Honestly, unless you’re a gender studies major or lived through the polyester-drenched 1970s, the name might not ring a bell. But back then, she was everywhere. She was the woman who basically told the world that the "vaginal orgasm" was a myth and that most women weren't getting what they needed in bed. She sold 50 million books. She was a superstar.
Then, she just... vanished.
It wasn't a "true crime" disappearance. No one snatched her off the street. But in the 1980s and 90s, the American public essentially hounded her out of the country. One minute she's on every talk show in Manhattan; the next, she’s renouncing her US citizenship and living in self-imposed exile in Europe. It’s one of the weirdest, most frustrating vanishing acts in intellectual history.
The Disappearance of Shere Hite started with a typewriter
To understand why she left, you have to understand who she was. She wasn't some stuffy academic. She was a former model—stunning, blonde, and frequently broke. While trying to pay for her PhD at Columbia, she did some modeling. One of those gigs was for Olivetti typewriters. The ad featured her draped over a machine with the tagline: "The typewriter is so smart she doesn't have to be."
Talk about a wake-up call.
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She was furious. She joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) and started a project to ask women what they actually felt during sex. Not what Freud said they should feel, and not what their husbands assumed they felt. Actual, messy, honest truth.
The result was The Hite Report (1976). It was a bomb. It revealed that 70% of women didn't reach orgasm through penetration alone. Today, we call that "Tuesday." In 1976, it was a revolution. Men were terrified. Critics were livid.
Why America turned on her
Success brought a level of vitriol that’s hard to imagine now. Well, maybe not if you’ve been on Twitter lately, but for the 80s, it was peak toxicity.
People started calling it "The Hate Report." They said she hated men. They said her methodology—using anonymous, long-form surveys—was "unscientific." Honestly, the guys in charge of the media back then just couldn't handle a beautiful woman telling them they were doing it wrong.
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By the time she published her follow-ups on men and the family, the gloves were completely off. She was being physically threatened. People were "doorstepping" her—showing up at her house to harass her. On a 1987 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, an audience of men literally screamed at her. You can watch the clips now and it’s genuinely uncomfortable. They weren't debating her data; they were attacking her existence.
The final straw: 1995
By 1989, Hite had enough. She moved to Germany with her husband, Friedrich Höricke. But the move wasn't just a vacation. In 1995, she did something almost unheard of for a major American public figure: she renounced her US citizenship.
She said she no longer felt free to carry out her research in the country of her birth. She was "stateless" for two days before her German passport arrived. Think about that. One of the most successful authors in American history felt safer being a refugee from her own culture than staying in New York.
Where did she go?
The "disappearance" was really a retreat into a quieter, more respected life. In Europe, she wasn't a punchline or a "man-hater." She was a scholar.
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She lived in various places—Germany, Japan, France—before finally settling in London. She kept writing. She kept researching. But she rarely stepped foot back in the States. The US media had basically erased her. While Masters and Johnson or Kinsey became household names in the history of sexology, Hite's name was scrubbed from the mainstream narrative.
She died in 2020 at her home in Tottenham, North London. She was 77. She’d been suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, but even in her final years, friends said she was still the same sharp, defiant woman who wouldn't let a typewriter ad tell her she was stupid.
What we can learn from Hite’s "exile"
The story of Shere Hite is a cautionary tale about how we treat women who disrupt the status quo. We didn't just disagree with her; we tried to break her. And yet, her work laid the foundation for every modern conversation we have about sexual wellness and consent.
If you're looking to understand her legacy better, here are some ways to dig deeper:
- Watch the Documentary: Nicole Newnham’s 2023 film The Disappearance of Shere Hite (narrated by Dakota Johnson) is the best visual record of what she went through. It uses Hite's own journals to tell the story.
- Read the Original Report: Don't just read about it. Find a vintage copy of The Hite Report. It’s composed of anonymous quotes from women that are still shockingly relatable today.
- Recognize the Pattern: When you see a woman being "canceled" or mocked for challenging social norms, ask yourself if we're seeing another "Hite moment."
She might have disappeared from the talk shows, but the truth she uncovered never went away. She just had to leave home to keep it alive.