What men really want in bed — by the woman who says she knows

Press, 25 June 1981, Page 12

What men really want in bed — by the woman who says she knows

By

CELIA HADDON and W. J. WEATHERBY,

London “Sunday Times."

• Shore Hite has set .off on the well-trodden path of the all-American sex researcher. Her second book about the sex life of America was published in the United States last week. To be taken seriously, sex research seems to need all the razzmatazz of trivial press comment, uninformed reviews., radio chats and television show appearances. Many a small but useful study has been born only to blush almost unseen -in the pages of the “Journal of Sex Research." "Archives of Sexual Behaviour," or even "Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality.”

Larger pieces of research have graced only library walls in the dull covers of the Academic Press, or, afterbrief lives as cheap paperbacks, have been pulped into obscurity.

"The Hite Report on Male Sexuality” is unlikely to suffer this fate.

Shere Hite already knows that in order to make people read your book, you have to go around talking about its contents. Besides, her book fulfils at least two criteria for successful sex research and best sellerdom: it is fat. with 1129 pages weighing four pounds and it is controversial.

Her earlier book, "The Hite Report on Female Sexuality." became a best seller when it was published first in the United States in 1976, and in Britain the following year. It has since sold a stagger-

ing 750,000 copies throughout the world in hard-back covers alone, and has been translated into 16 languages. If readers are as interested in male as in female sexuality, Ms Hite will Score a second. The new book has the same strengths and weaknesses as its predecessor. When Ms Hite got 3019 anonymous women to fill in a detailed questionnaire

about sex, she let their comments speak for themselves in the pages of her book. The quotations were intriguing — sometimes anguished, sometimes angry, occasionally bizarre. It was an insight into how people felt about sex, at a time when society seemed obsessed only by what they did, how often, and with whom. Ms Hite’s conclusions were contentious.

She maintained that for most women direct clitoral stimulation was needed for orgasm, and that perhaps sexual intercourse wasn't meant to produce female response.

She was greatly in favour of masturbation, devoting a

long first chapter to its many variations. Her second book applies this theme to men.

It is rich in fascinating quotations from the 7239 men who answered her new questionnaire. Like the earlier women, some of these men are very angry indeed: “Yes, I usually take the initial sexual advance . . . and every other advance after that . . . and I’m damned tired of it. I make the first phone , call. I make the first date ... I touch her and I (make love to) her . . . It’s no wonder we grow up to think of women as objects, because that's exactly what many women act like."

Some of the true life confessions paint a gloomy pic-

ture of the current battle of the sexes across the Atlantic.

One man complains: “I’ve been picked up by women who just wanted sex, and afterwards just rolled over and went to sleep — I don’t like it any more than a woman does.”

. More representative was the protest: “I have never met a woman who loved sex, simply and straightforwardly.”

Others speak as though sex were an arduous sport: "1 feel more, of a man than at other times. A woman s body is always a challenge; you never know how it will respond. nor to what nor when. It’s' like a good game of tennis; you hit a hell of a good shot, and whammo. it comes back twice as hard. A woman's body is a mountain to be scaled, a house to be inhabited.” The conclusions that Shere Hite draws from her questionnaire responses are as controversially feminist as those in her earlier book. Take masturbation, for instance. A hundred years ago this was called self-abuse, and believed to cause blindness and nervous disorders. Today, it is seen as the indispcnsible condition of sexual success, with sex therapists training women to' stimulate themselves. Ms Hite now claims that masturbation is more fun for men than intercourse.

Most oi the men .say their physical sensations are stronger when they stimulate themselves than when they make love to a woman.

Ms Hite offers some helpful suggestions for men burdened with anxieties about

their heterosexual performance: “Men do not have to always have sex with another person. nor must they always be ready to orgasm or “perform” during sex. Perhaps seeing here how common and pleasurable masturbation is, other men will allow men to feel less reserved and guilty about it. to enjoy it more, and even ,to share it during sex with another, when they want.” She also feels that “physical relations could develop a more spontaneous feeling if the importance of erection were greatly de-em-phasised.” Many people would agree that American society, which is currently plagued with freelance unqualified sexsurrogates, mechanical aids and even little hydraulic gadgets to be fitted to the root of the problem, could do with a little less emphasis on erection. Ms Hite’s male correspondents. however, did not like the idea of sexual activity without an orgasm — 83 per cent said they could not enjoy it.

Traditionalists will also be relieved to know that almost all heterosexuals preferred intercourse to alternative sexual activities — whether alone or with a partner. *

But their reasons seemed to be more psychological than physical. When asked “Why do you like intercourse?” only three per cent mentioned orgasm: most men referred to love, acceptance, feelings of masculinity and physical closeness.

“It is the closest you can be to a person,” said one respondent, "and for a

moment or an hour it overcomes the loneliness and separtion of life."

Shere Hite concludes that intercourse may be the only setting in which many men feel able to express emotion.

Her analysis of the ills in society's sex life evinces a feminist view of our patriarchal culture. Partly because of this, critical reaction to her new book has not been all bouquets. Dr Wardell B. Pomeroy, closest associate of the late Professor Kinsey, says: “The direct quotations from men are good. They really tell a story. But scientifically, the work is poor. I think the conclusions show Shere Hite's prejudice against intercourse.”

This Hite Report, like the last one. is clearly vulnerable to those critics who say that it cannot be representative. Though Ms Hite recorded the views of more than 7000 men. almost 16 times that number received questionnaires but did not return them.- In spite of the verbal echo of her titles, her work in no way approaches Kinsey's classic reports in either scale or thoroughness — and even Kinsey fell victim to a whole book of criticism from the American Statistical Association. But some of this criticism has a rther hypocritical ring, coming as it does from a

sexology industry whose favourite survey too often consists of roughly 200 white psychology students filling in questionnaires for their professor. Shere Hite hardly fits the identiki picture of a successful sex researcher.

This ideal figure, it has been said, should be middleaged. married with children, medically qualified and backed by a learned institution. Ms Hite admits to none of these. Now 38. she has an M.A. in social history: she broke off studies for her PhD to become a model. But then. Kinsey was a gall wasp expert until his university

asked him to run a course on marriage. As for Virginia E. Johnson, she started sex research as a divorcee with a background in music studies, but no degree. Ms Hite is not. however, just a cynical writer using sex research as a quick route to the best-seller lists. So little does she care for money, indeed, that she voluntarily limited her royalties on the’last book to a modest 525.000 a year. (Today, she's trying to change that unusual deal.)

Her aim is simple — she wants to change society. And to this end. she is preparing a third book, on teen-age sexuality. “My motivation is to see things change for the better. When you talk about female sexuality you tend to talk about a problem," she said

about her last book. “But we don't have a problem. Societv has." Shere Hite is.trying to use the media without letting it use her. This time she also faces the "second book syndrome” — critics who gave the first book uncritical admiration may compensate by giving the second uncritical condemnation.

Some of the reviews have been more than a little unkind. led by Time Magazine's comment: "Hite's analysis, in fact, is jarringly out of sync with what her correspondents are telling her." To avoid celebrity publicity-. Ms Hite acts as her own publicity manager. She has delaved interviews to give reporters more time to read her massive report. She also hands out photographs of herself at work at her desk. "A woman should be seen at work." she explains. If she is somewhat on ths defensive, that too is not unknown among sex researchers.

. Havelock Ellis, the first of them all. almost completely retreated from public life rather than face controversy. Kinsey was sometimes distressed and obsessive about criticism. Masters and Johnson were so determined to avoid charges'of titillation that their first book was written in barely comprehensible jargon.

"I don't think you can work in this field for a quarter of a century without developing a tendency to paranoia,” Masters once admitted.

Shere Hite has complained that her first book was treated in Britain as if it was just one more rude book from some American sexpert dame.

Truly, the life of a sexologist may be more anxiety than pleasure. As. indeed, are the sex lives of so many of those who answer sexology questionnaires.