The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023)

Directed by Nicole Newnham and featured at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, this daring documentary examines the backstory of sexologist, researcher, and cultural historian, Shere Hite, whose work is akin to that of Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnsons, but until now has been a relative unknown in comparison. In 1976, after sending out 3,000 anonymous surveys across the country, she published The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study in Female Sexuality, reportedly the first published work to say that women’s primary sex organ was the clitoris. Sadly, Shere’s groundbreaking discoveries were challenged, over-scrutinized, and generally not taken seriously because of her modeling past, specifically due to the fact that she had been a model for Playboy. Eventually, all the biting criticism caused her to renounce her U.S. citizenship in 1995 and exile herself to Germany until her death in 2020. Luckily, Newnham was able to her hands not only on Shere’s numerous television appearances and historic scenes from events like NOW conferences, but also the archive of nude photographs taken of Shere by her photographer friends. With the sultry voice of Dakota Johnson narrating Shere’s words throughout, something big and hard is sure to reappear in your pants!