Hello, welcome again to one of my favorite segments on the SSL blog, Random Hite Report! It's simple really. I flip through the pages of the The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (or sometimes The Hite Report on Male Sexuality) by a one Ms. Shere Hite and copy the contents of the page where I land - no more no less. Anyone who reads my blog will know that this 1976 book is a fave of mine; not only because of its realistic and progressive insight about the female orgasm that is still shockingly relevant 40 years later, but also because of its very touching insight into the lives of the women who took part in this huge, comprehensive survey. This is an under-appreciated and under-read book if you ask me - I suggest you buy it online (seriously, you can get them for like 1 cent) and read it.
So, sit back, getcha a beverage, and enjoy a little...Random Hite Report...you never know what yer gonna get!
The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality Dell. 1976.
Pg. 435 From chapter "Sexual Slavery" in the section called 'LOVE'
It happens that the section 'LOVE' starts 1/2 page back from the page I flipped to, and it seemed easier to copy from the beginning of that section until end of page 435 instead of trying to use my own words to introduce what was happening on pg. 435. So, that's what I did. Enjoy.
LOVE
But somehow, the truth is more complicated than the simple idea that women are oppressed in bed as elsewhere out of "habit" - simply because "just as women are used to serving men their coffee, so they are used to serving them their orgasms." It is still remarkable how easily we bring ourselves to orgasm during masturbation, and how totally we can ignore this knowledge during sex with men. It seems clear that we are often afraid to use this knowledge during sex with men because to do so would be to challenge male authority. Somehow it is all right for a woman to demand equal pay, but to demand equality in sex is not considered valid.
Why are women afraid to challenge men in bed? First, they fear losing men's "love." The question of what love is, of course, is very complicated, but it is clear that as seen throughout this chapter, the importance of sex for women is inextricably bound up with love:
"Sex for me is a very private and almost sacred thing. To me sex means the supreme proof of love."
"In my own case, I desire happiness, togetherness, love, etc., and I know that if for no apparent reason I kept refusing sex, I would lose some of the happiness in my life, and I might lose the love my man has for me. He would assume that something was wrong and make changes, perhaps excluding me from his life."
"It's a trade. Like my mother says, men give love for sex. Women give sex for love."
It does seem to many sex researchers and therapists that the fear of losing a man's love is holding many woman back from having orgasms with men. According to Helen Kaplan in The New Sex Therapy:
...The frank reaching for sexual pleasure may mobilize unconscious fears (in a woman) that she will be abandoned. She may be afraid that her husband will get tired of 'catering' to her. Or, if the patient assumes superior position in coitus, she may be afraid that her husband will find her unsatisfactory sexually because she is unattractive in that sitting-up position. These fears may have some basis in reality. The husband may, in fact, become impatient or rejecting. Moreover, if he feels that his sexual role has been pre-empted, this experience may give rise to anxiety in the husband as well, and in that event he may defend against this anxiety by behaving in ways that repel or frighten his wife.1
Similarly, Fisher found that the only difference psychologically between those women who were able to orgasm with their husbands (they were all married) and those who were not involved love. Fisher reported that:
...the prime difference between women who are high and low in orgasmic consistency is their alarm about losing what they love. The low-orgasmic woman feels that persons she values and loves are not dependable, that they may unpredictably leave her. She seems to be chronically preoccupied with the possibil-...
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