The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and then Disappeared: Rosa Campbell on Shere Hite and the Hite Report

Come and meet Shere Hite—the feminist hero whose notorious work revolutionized how we think about sex, marriage, and the female orgasm...

We are thrilled to welcome Rosa Campbell, historian of global feminism, to the bookshop for a deep dive into the life and work of one of the little known but leading thinkers of the second wave feminist movement, Shere Hite.

Her groundbreaking book, The Hite Report, was the first feminist exploration of the link between sex and male power. It sold millions of copies when first published in 1976 and revolutionized the way people thought about marriage and the female orgasm. How, then, did it, and Hite, disappear from public consciousness? Using original research material and sharp cultural analysis, Rosa Campbell explores Hite’s complicated life and literary legacy. Campbell expands on Hite’s ideas about sex — namely, that sex is sexist — and tracks Hite through her fraught childhood, her struggles working in the porn industry, and her eventual cancellation by the far-right Evangelical movement. All the while, Campbell holds Hite and The Hite Report to account for their own failings and absence of intersectionality. In a post-Dobbs, post-MeToo world, this book’s examination of shifting ideological movements is essential to understanding both the current feminist movement, as well as how conservative, reactionary, counter-mobilization efforts can silence even the most successful of women.