Remember Shere Hite? A new documentary jogs our cultural memory of the pioneering sex researcher

By LINDSEY BAHR
AP Film Writer

The 1976 book “The Hite Report” was a bestseller from the beginning. Its intimate anecdotes about love, sex, orgasms and masturbation, drawn from anonymous survey responses from about 3,000 women across the U.S., challenged male assumptions about heterosexual intercourse. And it made its author, Shere Hite, a deeply polarizing public figure. But cultural memory can be short. When she died in 2020, at age 77, it seemed as though she’d been all but forgotten. “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” a new documentary from IFC Films now playing in theaters, takes a holistic look the woman behind the report.