Sexual satisfaction was a key part of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, with pleasure as the main aim. People were talking more openly about sex and according to sex researcher Shere Hite, the time had come to focus on the female orgasm. She showed many women what they had been missing. Using revelations in her anonymous questionnaires from more than 30,000 women aged between 14 and 78, her book The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (1976/2004) educated women about sex and sexuality. Hite’s findings revealed 70 per cent of women who couldn’t achieve orgasm through sexual intercourse were able to by other means, clitoral stimulation and masturbation, and this knowledge should now be shared.
‘But Gosh! I’ve never seen such a fleece between a woman’s legs in
my life. Darn me if she wouldn’t have to be sheared before man could
get into her,’ said a ‘passer-by’ on the view of Miss Dean in erotic
classic The Memoirs of Dolly Morton, 1899