In this major study, groundbreaking researcher Shere Hite challenges established views on the family, arguing that it is not collapsing--as advocates of traditional "family values" would have us believe--but instead shifting from a rigid, patriarchial formula to increasingly egalitarian, custom-tailored variations. "Revealing and moving reflections on family life".--Publishers Weekly.

A reproduction of the classic text, unavailable now for more than a decade, with a new introduction by the author. The Hite Report, first published in 1976, was a sexual revolution in six hundred pages. To answer sensitive questions dealing with the most intimate details of women's sexuality, Hite's innovation was simple: she asked women, a lot of them, everything--and published the results.
One hundred thousand women, ages fourteen to seventy-eight, were asked what they do and don't like about sex; how orgasm really feels, with and without intercourse; how it feels not to have an orgasm during sex; the importance of clitoral stimulation and masturbation; and to name the greatest pleasures and frustrations of their sexual lives, among many other questions.
The Hite Report declares that orgasm is easy and strong for women, given the right stimulation; that most women have orgasm most easily during masturbation or clitoral stimulation by hand; that sex as we define it is a cultural institution, not a biological one; and that attitudes must change to include the stimulation women desire.

"The Shere Hite Reader "presents wide-ranging analyses of the individual and society from a renowned thinker on psychosexual development. The book includes new science in addition to previously published material, reflecting Hite's three decades of work probing the roots of human identity.

For the first time, Hite formalizes her thinking on male adolescence, that boys feel tortured by the new social role they are forced to assume at puberty, requiring a show of superiority toward females. In new detail, Hite advances her understanding that sex is political, linking the expectation on women to achieve orgasm through coitus with broader patterns of oppression. Hite discusses new research on female adolescence, challenging the "virgin" hymen concept and documenting that sexual awakening often precedes puberty. Hite also argues that pornography misrepresents male sexuality (not to mention female sexuality), depicting it as singular and silly instead of "full of intriguing, nuanced behavior involving the entire body, not just the penis."

These and many more new insights are joined by previous work, addressing topics such as the G-spot myth and the coercive aspect of modern "love." The Shere Hite Reader distills the findings of "The Hite Report "(1976); "The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality "(1981); "Women and Love "(1987); and "The Hite Report on the Family "(1994); as well as later books published outside the U.S.: "Sex and Business, Women with Women, Women as Revolutionary Agents of Change, The Divine Comedy of Ariadne and Jupiter," and "L'Orgueil d'etre une femme."

The authoritative collection of her work, "The Shere Hite Reader" challenges the reader to discover a new wayof seeing.

Shere Hite's best known work is "The Hite Report" (1976), which has sold over thirty-five million copies worldwide.