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THE FIRST TIME THE HITE REPORT Byline: SHERE HITE When girls imagine their first sexual encounters, they fear pain and dream of pleasure, writes SHERE HITE, in her new book, The Hite Report on the Family, based on more than 3,000 responses to her questionnaire. The Herald's exclusive extracts of the 1994 Hite Report continue all this week. MOST girls, even today, go into their first experience of intercourse, thinking that they should have "more pleasure than they've ever had"; that the pleasure should be much greater than during "just petting" or masturbation. But they are often used to having orgasms during these activities, and are shocked when they do not have orgasms easily during coitus - and find the feelings so different from the clear-cut orgasms they are used to. The Hite Report on Female Sexuality first demonstrated (in 1976) that it is not the "norm" for women to orgasm from simple coitus, but rather from exterior or clitoral stimulation - and that this should become a standard part of sex that, many women were faking orgasms during intercourse, feeling terribly guilty and "abnormal" if they did not have them, never daring to tell their partner, but instead going into the bathroom to masturbate privately for orgasm after sex. With the continued depiction of women in videos and movies as "coming" from intercourse, in the same way and at the same time as men do, the reality of most women's need for clitoral stimulation to orgasm has begun to be obscured, and now girls (who have little information from their mothers and rely mostly on magazines, films, and their sexual partners) are again having to go through sometimes several years of experimentation and worry before feeling confident and comfortable with their bodies. Research for this study demonstrates quite surprisingly that most girls do not experience pain or bleeding on first coitus; the percentage of those who do is quite low. In fact, even more surprisingly, it may not be anatomically" normal" for girls to have a painful-to-break hymen. Those who are "supposed" to know - gynaecologists or paediatricians - in fact have no particular expertise in this, since (1) gynaecologists usually do not see very young girls, and (2) paediatricians usually don't do in-depth or detailed vaginal examinations. Therefore, is the assumption that "normal girls" have hymens, simply based on hearsay, or "learned" in medical textbooks? On what body of knowledge and investigation, if any, are these texts based? According to my research, only 18 per cent of women felt any painful tearing or saw any blood on first intercourse, or at any time earlier in their lives. This would imply that a belief in the prevalence of a full hymen in girls is a myth, and a dangerous one at that, especially For women in cultures that punish women if they are not virgins on marriage. We may be doing a great disservice to girls and their families, causing them needless worry over this question, by letting this assumption continue unchallenged. In the worst scenario, it can cause parents to take their daughters to doctors to be "checked" and "sewn up" before marriage, especially in cultures where hymens are a fetish. For many girls, petting and erotic affection is more pleasurable and exciting than coitus. Special emotions and feelings go with that eroticism: "I loved dating. I loved showing off my boyfriends. I only dated hunks. My first kiss was sweet and tender, I remember it vividly. l was 14. The first time I made out with a boy, I was 15. He was very aggressive and horny. I remember feeling so horny myself | I loved all of that time, the touching, the kissing, the air of suspense and possibility: what will we do? My body was just ready for it all, l was so turned on." ------------------------------ Publication: Sydney Morning Herald - Publication date: 28-2-1994 - Edition: Late - Page no: 9 - Section: News and Features - Sub section: Agenda |
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