So how did Shere Hite disappear?

IFC Films unveiled the official trailer for The Disappearance of Shere Hite, a documentary portrait of famed sex educator and feminist Shere Hite, narrated by actress Dakota Johnson.

Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy.

Release Date

Directed by Nicole Newnham, The Disappearance of Shere Hite premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and opens in theaters on November 17th, 2023.

Synopsis

The Hite Report, a groundbreaking study of the intimate experiences of women, remains one of the bestselling books of all time since its publication in 1976. Drawn from anonymous survey responses, the book challenged restrictive conceptions of sex & opened a dialogue in popular culture around women’s pleasure. Its charismatic author, Shere Hite, a feminist sex researcher and a former model, became the public messenger of women’s secret confessions. With each subsequent bestseller, she engaged TV titans in unforgettably explicit debates about sexuality while suffering the backlash her controversial findings provoked. But few remember Shere Hite today. What led to her erasure?

Digging into exclusive archives, as well as Hite’s personal journals and the original survey responses, filmmaker Nicole Newnham (Crip Camp, Audience Award: U.S. Documentary, 2020 Sundance Film Festival) transports viewers back to a time of great societal transformation around sexuality. Her revelatory portrait is a rediscovery of a pioneer who has had an unmistakable influence on current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy, as well as a timely, cautionary tale of what too often happens to women who dare speak out. – via Sundance

Reviews

Variety review called the film “an astonishing, beautifully made corrective to the cultural amnesia that has for decades surrounded Hite” writing, ““The Disappearance of Shere Hite” is put together with such visual verve and creativity that even its most prickly passages are compulsively enjoyable to watch. Archival footage is thoughtfully chosen so that even when Hite is not on-screen — and there is a lot of footage of her — the vintage images feel made to order. And new interviews with surviving friends and supporters (including a surprise cameo from Gene Simmons of KISS) are warmly, characterfully shot by DP Rose Bush.”

Grading the film a 9 of 10, slashfilm review noted, “Perhaps the greatest strength of “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” however, is its poignant sense of hope. Despite the hardships Hite endured in the media and her eventual exile from the public eye, an overarching optimism makes the documentary so engaging to watch. It hopes that women eventually do not have to endure what she did and that the radical feminism of the future will be sex-positive and inclusive.”

Official Trailer

Watch the official trailer for The Disappearance of Shere Hite