Random Hite Report #31

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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.

The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality Dell. 1976.
Pg. 74 From the section Masturbation in the chapter "Feelings About Masturbation."

...gasm, what I find pleasurable. It has made it easier for me to tell what feels good, has made me like myself more, and given me insights into the depths of me."
    "Masturbation gave me the knowledge I could achieve orgasm. Now I know what it feels like and know I'm normal."
   :It's a way to explore and learn about your body without depending on a man to show you. The first man I slept with assumed I'd never had an orgasm before - that I needed him to show me how. Of course I wasn't supposed to assume such things about him."
   "It taught me a lot, mainly how to reach orgasm. Up until January 1973 I thought it was dirty. Now I know how wrong that idea is. I've learned to enjoy many aspects of sex since then and I feel masturbation helped a great deal."
   "I'm convinced auto-erotic stimulation is essential to most women - it may be the only adequate introduction to their bodies they receive."
   "Through masturbation I can learn how my body can feel and how it wants and likes to feel."
   "It's important in finding the stimulation points of your body, discovering your own body."
   "It's a way to explore one's sexuality without the self-consciousness of having anyone there." 

Some women also felt masturbation helped them have better sex with another person.
   "Masturbation teaches you to know your own body and to gratify it, which leads to increasing you sense of independence and may also increase your ability to relate to someone else; being able to tell someone else what gives one pleasure can do a lot for a relationship."
   "If you feel guilty about touching yourself, you can't be very free in giving yourself to another, or touching someone else."
   "How can you love or satisfy someone else if you can't satisfy your won self?"
   "Masturbation develops one's sexuality, because you learn how to touch yourself and therefore others. Perhaps the danger is that you can make it too good, be-..."