Sex researcher, author, and feminist, best known for her groundbreaking 1976 book, "The Hite Report". Based on thousands of responses from women to a questionnaire about their sexuality, it sold over 50 million copies.
Born Shirley Diana Gregory. Daughter of Paul Gervase Gregory, Jr. and Shirley Gertrude Hurt. She later took the surname of her stepfather, Raymond Hite, who adopted her. She married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke, who was 19 years her junior, in 1985; they divorced in 1999. During her marriage to him, she renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German. Her second husband was Paul Sullivan, with whom she lived in North London.
Hite's work focused primarily on female sexuality, building 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 "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm".
She graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a masters 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. While there, she posed in the nude for Playboy, and also posed provocatively in a typewriter ad to earn money for her college tuition. But when she read the ad's tagline, "The typewriter is so smart, she doesn't have to be," she joined a feminist protest against the very ad in which she had appeared. 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.
Hite later published additional studies based on responses to questionnaires, including "The Hite Report on Male Sexuality" (1981), "The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up under Patriarchy" (1994), and "The Hite Report on Women Loving Women" (2007), among others.
She lectured internationally, became a regular columnist for several newspapers, and in the late 1990s, founded the Hite Research Foundation to increase the visibility and potential of women around the world. In 2000, she wrote a memoir, “The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual and Political Autobiography” (2000). It was her attempt to set the record straight about her life and work and answer her critics.
Cause of death: corticobasal degeneration.
Born Shirley Diana Gregory. Daughter of Paul Gervase Gregory, Jr. and Shirley Gertrude Hurt. She later took the surname of her stepfather, Raymond Hite, who adopted her. She married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke, who was 19 years her junior, in 1985; they divorced in 1999. During her marriage to him, she renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German. Her second husband was Paul Sullivan, with whom she lived in North London.
Hite's work focused primarily on female sexuality, building 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 "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm".
She graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a masters 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. While there, she posed in the nude for Playboy, and also posed provocatively in a typewriter ad to earn money for her college tuition. But when she read the ad's tagline, "The typewriter is so smart, she doesn't have to be," she joined a feminist protest against the very ad in which she had appeared. 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.
Hite later published additional studies based on responses to questionnaires, including "The Hite Report on Male Sexuality" (1981), "The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up under Patriarchy" (1994), and "The Hite Report on Women Loving Women" (2007), among others.
She lectured internationally, became a regular columnist for several newspapers, and in the late 1990s, founded the Hite Research Foundation to increase the visibility and potential of women around the world. In 2000, she wrote a memoir, “The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual and Political Autobiography” (2000). It was her attempt to set the record straight about her life and work and answer her critics.
Cause of death: corticobasal degeneration.
Sex researcher, author, and feminist, best known for her groundbreaking 1976 book, "The Hite Report". Based on thousands of responses from women to a questionnaire about their sexuality, it sold over 50 million copies.
Born Shirley Diana Gregory. Daughter of Paul Gervase Gregory, Jr. and Shirley Gertrude Hurt. She later took the surname of her stepfather, Raymond Hite, who adopted her. She married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke, who was 19 years her junior, in 1985; they divorced in 1999. During her marriage to him, she renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German. Her second husband was Paul Sullivan, with whom she lived in North London.
Hite's work focused primarily on female sexuality, building 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 "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm".
She graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a masters 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. While there, she posed in the nude for Playboy, and also posed provocatively in a typewriter ad to earn money for her college tuition. But when she read the ad's tagline, "The typewriter is so smart, she doesn't have to be," she joined a feminist protest against the very ad in which she had appeared. 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.
Hite later published additional studies based on responses to questionnaires, including "The Hite Report on Male Sexuality" (1981), "The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up under Patriarchy" (1994), and "The Hite Report on Women Loving Women" (2007), among others.
She lectured internationally, became a regular columnist for several newspapers, and in the late 1990s, founded the Hite Research Foundation to increase the visibility and potential of women around the world. In 2000, she wrote a memoir, “The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual and Political Autobiography” (2000). It was her attempt to set the record straight about her life and work and answer her critics.
Cause of death: corticobasal degeneration.
Born Shirley Diana Gregory. Daughter of Paul Gervase Gregory, Jr. and Shirley Gertrude Hurt. She later took the surname of her stepfather, Raymond Hite, who adopted her. She married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke, who was 19 years her junior, in 1985; they divorced in 1999. During her marriage to him, she renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German. Her second husband was Paul Sullivan, with whom she lived in North London.
Hite's work focused primarily on female sexuality, building 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 "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm".
She graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a masters 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. While there, she posed in the nude for Playboy, and also posed provocatively in a typewriter ad to earn money for her college tuition. But when she read the ad's tagline, "The typewriter is so smart, she doesn't have to be," she joined a feminist protest against the very ad in which she had appeared. 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.
Hite later published additional studies based on responses to questionnaires, including "The Hite Report on Male Sexuality" (1981), "The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up under Patriarchy" (1994), and "The Hite Report on Women Loving Women" (2007), among others.
She lectured internationally, became a regular columnist for several newspapers, and in the late 1990s, founded the Hite Research Foundation to increase the visibility and potential of women around the world. In 2000, she wrote a memoir, “The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual and Political Autobiography” (2000). It was her attempt to set the record straight about her life and work and answer her critics.
Cause of death: corticobasal degeneration.
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