The Disappearance of Shere Hite (15)
Directed by Nicole Newnham
★★★★

 
IN the late 1970s trailblazing feminist sex researcher Shere Hite rocked the US Establishment with her bestselling book The Hite Report, which lifted the lid on the female orgasm, liberating women and scaring men.  

If you have not heard of her you are not alone, even though she was a household name back then, and it is a wrong that film-maker Nicole Newnham aims to right in this ambitious and eye-opening documentary which investigates how and why she disappeared from public life. And, essentially, was cancelled. 

Her 1976 work featured candid revelations about women’s sex lives, based on the findings of an anonymous questionnaire to which 3,000 women responded. The findings revealed that penetrative intercourse did not automatically result in an orgasm whereas masturbation did, thus dispelling years of long-held misconceptions.