About Shere Hite

Shere Hite was an American-born German sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite built upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey. She also referenced theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970s, such as Anne Koedt's essay The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm. She renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German.

Early life, education, and career[edit]
Hite was born Shirley Diana Gregory in St. Joseph, Missouri, to Paul and Shirley Hurt Gregory. Shortly after the end of World War II, when her parents divorced, she took the surname of her stepfather, Raymond Hite. She graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a master's degree in history from the University of Florida in 1967, she moved to New York City and enrolled at Columbia University to work toward her Ph.D. in social history. Hite said that the reason for her not completing this degree was the conservative nature of Columbia at that time.

In the 1970s, she did part of her research while at the National Organization for Women. She posed in the nude for Playboy while studying at Columbia University.

In 1988 she made an extended appearance on the British TV discussion programme After Dark, alongside James Dearden, Mary Whitehouse, Joan Wyndham, Naim Attallah and others.

Hite taught at Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan), Chongqing University in China, and Maimonides University, North Miami Beach, Florida, USA.