American sexologist and writer Shere Hite was BOTD in 1942. Born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, she studied social history at Columbia University in New York, embracing the contradictions of 1970s feminism by working for the National Organisation for Women and posing nude for Playboy magazine. She became an overnight celebrity with the publication of her 1976 book The Hite Report on Female Sexuality. Based on surveys mailed to thousands of women, Hite argued that the majority of women achieve orgasm via masturbation and clitoral stimulation rather than penetrative sex, debunking the theories of established sexologists Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey and Masters & Johnson. Selling over 50 million copies worldwide, The Hite Report became a lightning rod for second-wave feminism. While progressives hailed Hite’s demystification of female sexuality and encouragement for women to take control of their sexual pleasure, conservatives criticised her methodology and accused her of trying to make men redundant. Her later works included a companion study on male sexuality, studies of emotional violence in relationships and feminist critiques of the nuclear family as a patriarchal structure. Increasingly demonised by the American press, she renounced her US citizenship in 1995, moved to Germany and went into semi-retirement. Married twice, she is thought to have had relationships with men and women. She eventually settled in England, dying in 2020 aged 70. Her reputation was revived by the 2024 documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite, recounting the radicalism of her research and the intensity of the misogynistic abuse directed at her and her work.