We talkin' sex: Shere Hite visits Shanghai

Did you know that the epithet "jerk" -- as in That motherf#%kin "jerk" riding his motorbike on the sidewalk nearly took my arm off -- actually comes from "jerk off", as in wacking, wanking ... you get the picture. Now we know why onanism has gotten such a bad rap these last couple of decades centuries. Wondering where Shanghaiist comes up with such pearls of wisdom? Don't worry, it's not innate, you too can learn factoids such as this from the official website of Shere Hite, the famous scholar of sexuality and author of the landmark Hite Report on Female Sexuality, which came out in 1976 and kicked a lot of ideological ass, from what we gather. Shere Hite is not your typical academician, she's been on a mission to delve farther into human sexuality than most people are either capable of or comfortable doing.

And she came to Shanghai to give a talk (article in Chinese) at East China Normal University. Hite's topic was sex and marriage, or more precisely the role of sex in marriage. However, the article above only has the transcript of certain questions the journalist at Dong Fang Zao Bao (Oriental Morning Post) asked and Hite's answers -- which really do no justice to the woman, not because there is anything untruthful about the report, but because one or two sentence answers about questions regarding sexuality, ideology, marriage, etc., from someone who has a lot to say about the things that people are actually interested in is not just unfair ... in fact, we'd call that a "tease", laugh at our wittiness, and then proceed to earnestly deconstructing the ideological madness behind such terms.

What's worse is that she's funny, as evinced by the following witticism:

Famed sexual researcher Shere Hite was once asked how most men had had sex with her. Hite's Reply? "Poorly."