12/01/2023
"The Enigma of Shere Hite:
Unveiling Her Presence in the Film Director’s Life"
By Lupita Franco Peimbert
Nicole Newnham was a twelve-year-old inquisitive teenager, when she found “The Hite Report,” in her mother’s bedside chest, hidden in the back, under other papers. They lived in what she calls ‘fairly progressive’ Eugene, Oregon, circa 1979. Little did she know that she would be making a film about this iconic woman, decades later.
“I wasn’t growing up in an incredibly open environment around s*xuality. I had not encountered a lot about female s*xuality,” Newnham says, “and what I had encountered was more like: here is how things work –and not so much how people felt, or what their real experiences were, because women didn’t talk about it.”
Published in 1976, “The Hite Report,” was meant to uncover this mystery. Social researcher and author, Shere Hite (hence, the book title) considered, among many other things, that a lack of information on female s*xuality was disempowering women and keeping them stuck in relationships with men who did not satisfy them. To prove it, Hite sent 100,000 questionnaires to women in the United States, ranging in age from 17 to 78 years old, asking them to respond honestly, and be anonymous, and to send the questionnaires back. About 3,000 women responded by mail, and that was how the book and its 478 pages came about.
Both the book and the author caused great controversy, vividly and thoroughly depicted in the US media, especially in television talk and night shows for more than ten years. The Hite Report challenged views on s*xuality; Shere Hite was an extremely beautiful woman who blatantly displayed her beauty and s*x appeal personally and work-wise. She was often seen as a s*xual object and therefore not taken seriously. Her critics said her research had scientific flaws and was based on anecdotes, opinions, and complaints. After a while, she became defensive, even unfriendly, and people disliked her. She disappeared. How did it happen? Where did she go? Where was the feminist movement for her? Do younger generations know about Shere Hite? One asks.
Both the book and the author caused great controversy, vividly and thoroughly depicted in the US media, especially in television talk and night shows for more than ten years. The Hite Report challenged views on s*xuality; Shere Hite was an extremely beautiful woman who blatantly displayed her beauty and s*x appeal personally and work-wise. She was often seen as a s*xual object and therefore not taken seriously. Her critics said her research had scientific flaws and was based on anecdotes, opinions, and complaints. After a while, she became defensive, even unfriendly, and people disliked her. She disappeared. How did it happen? Where did she go? Where was the feminist movement for her? Do younger generations know about Shere Hite? One asks.
“The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” (IFC Films, 114 minutes), directed and produced by Nicole Newnham, offers a close look at Shere Hite’s life and activism. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, was released nationally in November, and hit the SF Bay Area in December. Actress Dakota Johnson narrates the film and is one of the executive producers.
During the pandemic and lockdown, Newnham saw Shere Hite’s obituary in the New York Times saying She explained how women reach or**sm and she was hated for it. “And I remembered! How could it be for someone who did so much that she was so hated and had to leave the country?”.
LFP: Why was Shere Hite and her report highly criticized?
NN: I think It was very triggering to men to have someone extremely beautiful and someone who was seen as a s*x object, speaking back. And telling them that women didn’t necessarily need a man to have an or**sm. Or that the way men were trying to give an or**sm wasn’t working for women. Rather than men embracing that, instead, they responded that they were being attacked ‘You are saying men are not needed, you are trying to get rid of men.’ A Traditional patriarchal system was being challenged. Shere became an easy target for men who were scared of the potential loss of their stature and dominance.
LFP: Was she as angry, defensive, or even aggressive as portrayed in the media?
NN: People get defensive and fed up. And that behavior would be used as evidence of her being problematic. Her reputation had been harmed to the point that she couldn’t make a living, or her books published. She wasn’t taken seriously. She was pushed to a point. It seems extremely justified. Who wouldn’t break under that level of scrutiny?
LFP: Where were the feminist movement and leaders?
Gloria Steinem and other feminists of those times wrote a letter to the New York Times saying she was being unfairly attacked by men who didn’t like to be told certain truths. I think feminists didn’t want to be tarnished by association. Shere Hite was severely criticized and portrayed negatively. She fell out of the feminist canon.
LFP: Did the United States society break her down?
NN: She was extremely traumatized by what happened to her in the United States. She was scared and fearful. She didn’t want anybody to know where she lived, as she had been getting death threats. She was terrified when she got to Europe.
LFP: What did she do in Europe?
NN: She was undaunting. She kept writing and publishing in Europe. She kept going on shows and trying to get her message across, knowing she was going to be asked about her nail polish instead of the important things she wanted to talk about. Nonetheless, she was very motivated by feeling that she could engage people in these discussions.
LFP: Why didn’t she come back to the US?
NN: I think she continued to feel like the environment in the United States was too hostile, puritanical, and repressive. (In 1995, Hite renounced her US Citizenship and became a German citizen).
On September 9, 2020, Shere Hite passed away in London, at 77 years old. Newnham never got to meet her in person, but Hite’s research on s*xuality made an impact on the filmmaker. “It changed my life. I understood at an early age that there was a diversity of human experiences around s*xuality. Whereas mainstream culture pushes this very narrow description of s*x.”
LFP: What motivated you to make a film?
NN: Her story closely maps into my story as a woman in this country. It is a very personal story for me. It has brought a lot of emotion and anger. Especially now, when our women’s rights (abortion) have been eroded. It was her obituary that got me to make the film. If the stories of how someone like Shere Hite did what she did and the knowledge that she disseminated are lost to us, that is an enormous loss for our ability to keep making progress.
LFP: How has making this film helped you?
NN: I had to unpack some sort of internalized misogyny in my own life and reckon with this story. I definitely evolved in terms of how I think of myself as a feminist and where I will focus my energy as an activist in the future, through the making of the film.
LFP: Are you a filmmaker, or a feminist and activist?
NN: What I do well is tell stories. It is an intense time that we are living in right now. We are living in a time of devastating backlash: lgbtq rights, and women’s rights. I have two young sons and they tell me how misogyny prevails in this generation, but thankfully, there is also awareness among young people. Giving them back an icon from the past who has been erased will help both young men and women. Storytelling like this is activism.
LFP: From the time you were a teenager to the present, what is The Hite’s Report to you?
NN: A very intimate, open, frank discussion around what people’s most intimate, s*xual experiences actually are. Shere’s owning her expression of s*xuality and feminism enables others to live their own truth.
“The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” (IFC Films, 114 minutes), directed and produced by Nicole Newnham, opens at Landmark’s Opera Plaza in San Francisco, on December 1, 2023.
