The Hite Report on Shere Hite (14 page)

To date, over twenty million copies of this book have been sold all over the world. The Hite Reports are published in over thirty countries. I read this and I think I have made a contribution to history! I can hardly believe it. No matter what happens to me, I feel very fulfilled. I have interacted with thousands – no, millions – of people around the world, and made a difference. I want to continue doing this.

Today many of the issues we fought for as a movement – Fran Hoskens wrote every month against clitoredectomy, genital mutilation, twenty years ago – are mainstream politics. Many of other issues formed the substance of the United Nations Charter Declaration on the Rights of Women, drafted and passed in Beijing, in 1995. Some of these include abortion, sexual harassment, domestic battering, single mothers (delegitimized by the dubious promotion of ‘family values'). Feminism, my work and the work of so many others, has moved the issue of women's freedom (and women's right to autonomy and control of their own bodies) to the centre of the political agenda.

Yet
inside
me,
even
after
all
this
–
wonderful
though
it
was
–
somehow
I
was
still
holding
back,
hiding
myself,
still
plan
ning
to
‘start'
my
life
later.
I
was
looking
forward
to
life
beginning
in
the
future!
My
intellect
was
fully
awake
and
fully
engaged,
but
my
soul
–
the
emotions
of
my
heart
–
were
not
yet
outwardly
expressed,
there
seemed
to
be
so
little
place
for
them.

I
felt
most
myself
when
working
or
listening
to
music
–
my
link
with
my
own
inner
world
–
the
world
I
really
lived
in.
I
wanted
not
to
lose
contact
with
a
more
aesthetic,
less
aggressive
world.
I
loved
to
listen
to
the
recordings
of
Nathan
Millstein,
Jascha
Heifetz,
Vladimir
Horowitz,
David
Oistrakh.
Without
all
of
these
records,
I
could
not
have
found
myself
so
completely
or
identified
my
inner
feel
ings.
And
too,
every
day
of
my
life,
I
was
helped
by
Puccini,
Prokofiev,
Wagner,
Rachmanihov
and
Strauss
(
I
know,
all
men
).

I
discovered
singers,
especially
female
singers,
from
ear
lier
in
the
century
while
living
in
New
York,
hearing
them
on
the
New York Times'
radio
station,
WQXR
,
in
a
programme
by
fabulously
knowledgeable
and
charming
George
Jellinek
(
originally
from
Hungary
).
He
featured
Kirsten
Flagstead
and
Jussi
Björling,
Rosa
Pons
and
Zinka
Milanov,
Robert
Merrill,
Sheryl
Milnes
and
so
many
others.
I
became
a
sponsor
of
the
Metropolitan
Opera,
and
belonged
to
one
of
its
clubs,
making
a
modest
annual
contribution.

Deep
in
my
heart,
filled
with
mysterious
trees
and
stars,
deer
and
birds,
I
was
guarding
myself,
guarding
my
hopes,
dreams,
even
my
joy
in
seeing
colours
(
I
love
pinks
and
yel
lows
)
.
I
kept
secret
my
emotional
purity,
my
desire
to
exper
ience
life
and
death
with
another,
soul
to
soul,
to
find
the
deeper
contact
I
heard
in
great
music.
These
hopes,
the
deer
in
my
heart,
would
dance
in
private,
when
I
was
alone,
when
I
could
let
my
dreams
speak
to
me.
Classical
music
was
my
spiritual
companion
and
guide.
I
felt
myself
able
to
make
contact
with
myself
and
my
soul,
hear
the
souls
of
others,
through
the
music.

For
the
last
year
of
writing
The Hite Report on Female Sexuality,
my
favourite
record,
perhaps
my
favourite
of
all
time,
was
Rosenkavalier
by
Strauss,
with
Karl
Bohm
con
ducting
the
Vienna
Philharmonic.
I
liked
the
joyous
pace,
the
sheer
beauty,
the
lush
orchestration,
the
intricacy
of
the
voices
together
in
quartets
and
duets,
each
with
her
or
his
own
independent
train
of
thought
and
melody
line.
I
espe
cially
liked
the
luscious
sounds
of
female
voices
together,
which
Strauss
used
so
often.
Thank
heaven
for
recorded
music
–
though
the
style
of
performance
has
changed
now,
it
is
generally
more
academic,
less
passionate
and
intense.
Of
course
there
are
exceptions,
Friedrich
Horicke,
Schlomo
Minz,
Mirella
Freni
and
Luciano
Pavarotti,
for
example.

Was
I
going
through
my
life
in
a
Sleeping
Beauty-like
trance?
Only
expressing
the
rational
side
of
myself,
keeping
back
the
parts
deeper
inside
me,
fearing
to
express
them?
Yes.
But
why
was
I
so
shy,
why
couldn't
I
risk
more?
What
did
I
have
to
lose?
Did
I
feel
myself
so
different
from
those
around
me
–
weren't
they
just
holding
back
too?
Or
had
I
been
badly
frightened
as
a
child,
or
was
I
just
perhaps
quite
sensitive?
I'm
not
sure.
I
had
little
confidence
that
if
I
shared
my
most
private
inner
world
with
others,
they
would
not
ridicule
it.
If
this
happened,
how
could
my
dreams
survive
intact?

I
love
the
sound
of
the
night.
Perhaps
this
love
began
when
my
grandfather
took
me
for
walks
after
dinner,
pointing
out
the
stars
in
the
sky
:
the
Big
Dipper,
the
Little
Dipper
and
the
Milky
Way.
You
could
almost
hear
the
earth
breathe,
there
next
to
the
trees
in
the
quiet
of
the
night,
and
imagine
great
ness
in
the
world.
As
a
student,
I
continued
to
live
part
of
my
life
late
at
night,
for
only
when
everyone
else
was
asleep,
could
I
be
fully
myself,
pay
attention
to
my
own
thoughts
and
dreams.
During
the
day,
I
was
in
a
dream-like
state,
screening
my
contact
with
the
world.

As
feminism
has
pointed
out,
being
asleep,
Sleeping
Beauty's
sleep,
is
a
metaphor
for
the
emotional
uncon
sciousness
many
women (and
men?
)
have
experienced
during
parts
of
their
lives.
Sometimes
this
sleep-state
means
losing
one's
identity,
sometimes
saving
it,
keeping
in
touch
with who one is amidst the
chaos
.
Ariadne
of
Greek
legend
kept
a
red
thread
to
find
her
way
out
of
the
labyrinth
others
had
constructed.

My
childhood,
in
a
rural
landscape
of
great
beauty,
a
fun
damentalist
church
in
the
background
and
the
discipline
of
school,
was
spent
in
a
dream,
one
might
say.
But
a
valuable
dream.
In
later
periods,
I
returned
often
to
this
dream,
that
is,
to
myself,
my
personal
ideas
and
feelings,
waiting
to
find
a
place
for
them.
I
knew
that
the
world
I carried
inside
me
(
or
did
not
see
in
daily
life
)
existed,
I
was
not
imagining
it,
because
I
heard
it
in
the
murmurs
of
the
leaves
on
the
trees,
the
harmonies
of
nature,
in
the
spirit
of
great
music
–
and
in
my
own
heart.