Society still considers men "promiscuous by nature" and expects them "to flit from blossom to blossom, spreading their pollen," Shere Hite, author of the controversial Hite Report on Male Sexuality, told a capacity Kennedy School Forum crowd last night.

Hite, whose first book, a report on female sexuality, attracted widespread attention by concluding that only 30 per cent of women have orgasm during intercourse, argued against the notion that male and female roles are biologically determined and therefore unchangeable. She noted that mostly male reviewers have attacked her current book, and speculated that her conclusions may be upsetting because "we like to build our lives around a biological base."

Speaking softly to a crowd which alternately broke into laughter, appluase and scattered hissing, Hite described her conclusions on male sexuality, culled from 7329 questionnaires, as "somewhat bleak at first sight."

Society's definition of sex "has always been very sexist," focused on the vagina, penis and orgasm rather than the clitoris, Hite said, adding that most men see women as"traps and burdens, but the best that can be expected for overcoming loneliness."

Quoting men aged 13 to 97, Hite drew a picture of males under "incredible pressure of comparison" with other men, but unable to communicate with them, having been conditioned from childhood not to share emotions. Many men, she said, grow up "thinking there can't be any give and take--give two inches to a woman, and she'll dominate you."

Because of this constant pressure, one of sex's main attractions for men may be that during it, "It's okay to be out of control--you can say anything you want, and afterwards you don't have to mean it," Hite suggested, drawing laughter from both men and women in the audience.

Her results showed that 72 per cent of men married more than two years have extramarital affairs which they do not reveal to their wives, but that the over-whelming majority of these men consider their marriages happy and balanced, Hite said.

Hite defended her book against reviewers' contentions that "I didn't listen to my respondents," and against challenges to the statistical validity of her findings, by calling the book "a forum to bring up ideas and learn from them--not a survey, which I would never be interested in doing."