Dr Ruth

People don’t like talking about sex. That’s part of our culture, a Puritanical hang-up that hasn’t altogether been shaken.

One person tried to shake it, very publicly.

That was Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who has passed away at age 96.

Her frankness and humour took her from a late-night programme on a community radio station to fame through a national television talk-show audience. A wonderful feature story was written about her in June 2012 by Adam Geller of the Associated Press; you can read it for free at this site. Below are two stories written about her in 1984. The first comes from the White Plains Journal-News of January 15, the second from the Nyack Journal-News of Feb. 16.

No taboo topic for Dr. Ruth, just good advice
By JAYNE STOGEL
Radio Columnist
The key to the success of Dr. Ruth Westheimer may be a little like my Bubbi's (grandmother's) recipe for chicken soup: A little bit of 'dis, a little bit of 'dat, and it couldn't hurt.
Dr. Ruth (as she is commonly referred to by her devotees) bubbles with the right combination of stock that makes people rave. She and her show are a mixture of candid, entertaining and intelligent conversations about two previously taboo topics sex and relationships (sexual or otherwise).
"I think it's really a combination of things that has led to the program's success," said Dr. Ruth. "I'm well trained and willing to talk straight and directly. I'm an older woman with an accent (her parents sent her to Switzerland where she was able to escape the Nazi massacre of Jews and where she was orphaned as a result of Hitler's concentration camps) and I made sure that the radio program would be a combination of fifty percent talk about relationships and fifty percent talk about sex.
"The questions really run the gamut," she continued. "I don't think there's a question that hasn't been asked."
And don't let her size (four feet seven inches) fool you. She is a powerhouse of energy, activity and ambition that has led to the success of "Sexually Speaking," her WYNY live call-in program. "Sexually Speaking" began as a taped, public affairs program 2 ½ years ago for WYNY Radio in New York and has snowballed into an hour-long show in New York and Los Angeles Sunday nights at 10 p.m. She is also heard in Europe and is currently testing the Chicago radio market.
She has written a number of books, her most recent "Dr. Ruth's Guide to Good Sex," and hosted her own television program for WNEW-TV.
Her listeners and readers may be looking for advice, but Dr. Ruth really sees herself as an educator, perhaps as a result of beginning her professional career as a kindergarten teacher.
"This is not therapy on the air," she stresses. The radio program answers 20 to 25 calls on Sunday nights, but attracts between three to four thousand callers. "I try to give an educational answer that an aunt might give. The program is really an attempt to increase sexual literacy."
And hows [sic] does Dr. Ruth feel about the notoriety that has led to interviews with Johnny Carson, David Letterman and recognition wherever she travels?
"I like it. People are really nice," she said.
Dr. Ruth's life is filled with lots more people than those on the WYNY telephone lines. She loves to travel, hikes in the summer and skiis in the winter.
As part of her New Year's list of resolutions, Dr. Ruth will be taking some of her own advice.
"In order to keep relationships and friendships going, you have to cultivate them," she said. "I talk a lot on the telephone and make sure to visit people whenever I travel. I work a great deal, and for 1984 I'd like to take a little more time for fun. Sometimes I talk much, but I am a good listener."
While her two children were growing up (her daughter now lives and works in Israel and her son is a student at Princeton University) she made a rule not to ask personal questions, but to be open with them when they asked questions.
With her program "Strictly Speaking" Dr. Ruth does not hesitate to ask personal questions, but it is her ability to listen that provides the right combination of talking and listening that has aided her program's success.

'Dr. Ruth' pulls no punches in sex talk at Ramapo
By T.M. PURVIS
Standing only 4 foot 7 inches tall with neatly coiffed, blondish hair, Dr. Ruth Westheimer looks more like your best friend's mother or a very young grandmother than a radio talk show host.
Her popular program, "Sexually Speaking", which airs on WYNY-FM (97.1) every Sunday evening at 10-11 PM, is the number one program in its time slot in the tri-state area. In September, the successful talk show will celebrate its third year.
"Dr. Ruth," as her radio callers address her, candidly told a full auditorium at Ramapo College in Mahwah this week that "There is a need for such a program. Or there wouldn't be other programs (similar to it) and it would have lost its ratings."
Dr. Ruth is able to answer only 20 or so of the between 3,00 and 4,00 [sic] calls she receives per hour during the show. A one-woman crusade for "sexual literacy," she firmly believes that "The more we educate, the less we will need sex therapists...Sex education must be a combination of parents, church, synagogue and schools working together."
The practicing sex therapist and professor of human sexuality at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center became interested in her present field while working for Planned Parenthood in 1967. Her academic credentials include a master's degree in sociology from the New School and a doctorate in education from Columbia University.
"We are a very strange society; we have the technology to send a man to the moon, but we don't have an effective contraceptive," announced Dr. Ruth in her high-pitched, thick German accent, quite unlike any DJ's voice currently calling the Top 40.
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she was sent to a Swiss orphanage in 1939 by her parents, who feared the impending holocaust. That was the last time she saw them and she believes they died in an Eastern European concentration camp. After emigrating to Israel at the age of 16 and returning to Europe some years later, she came to the U.S in 1956.
Referring to advertisements commonly found in college newspapers, Dr. Ruth said that it upsets her to see abortions advertised and then underneath in smaller print mention of counseling and contraceptives, which should, in her mind, take priority, and which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Unwanted pregnancies are the result of ignorance, she told her audience, saying that she remembers coathanger abortions and fears that, if illegal, abortion would then become, as it once was, available only to the wealthy. "Abortion must remain legal."
What is Dr. Ruth's appeal? She is honest. "When I don't know, I will tell you I don't know." She is quick to refer sexual problems warranting a closer examination to a physician's or a therapist's care and has a refreshing sense of humor in dealing with extremely delicate sexual problems that seems to put the nervous questioner at ease.
It is possible, she says, to "teach human sexuality with all the data and facts, and with humor."
Dr. Ruth's candor and attentive manner on the air and in person are proof of this. Answering questions posed by her radio audience or written on cards and read anonymously at a speaking engagement, she remains serious, clinical, even when a not-so-serious question is accompanied by snickers and giggles, as were some at Ramapo. Still she believes that someone out there might need the answer because everyone needs to know that he or she is not alone or abnormal.
Dr. Ruth doesn't mince words. Before the lecture, she sounded off a list of words, the jargon of a sex therapist, as if she were reading a grocery list. As some in the audience squirmed and blushed, Dr. Ruth, in her mid-50s, stood coolly at the podium, clearly aware of the adolescent reactions she prompted.
Newly elected as a fellow to the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Ruth has an opinion on most everything and has indeed heard most everything from her patients and audiences.
To the Ramapo College audience Dr. Ruth expressed her thoughts on:
● The Squeal Law (proposed legislation that would require federally funded clinics to report to the parents of minors seeking health care) — "I'm against it."
● Pre-marital sex — "For some people it is right to wait until the wedding night."
● Masturbation — "There is nothing wrong with it and there are no ill effects."
● Sigmund Freud — "Sexually illiterate about female sexuality."
● G-spot — "I'm not saying there is no such thing....(just that) we don't have enough data."
● Homosexuality — "One homosexual thought doesn't make a homosexual."
● The Pill - "I have been against the pill... We don't know enough about it. I recommend the condom and the diaphragm."
● To those who feel they must tell all to a lover or mate — "Keep your mouth shut; not everything has to be shared."
Is sex all there is? "Not for a moment do I think sex is everything in a relationship."
Do drugs improve the quality of sex? No. All one needs is "a good partner and imagination in making sexual activity enjoyable."
Dr. Ruth, who ends most radio dialogues with "Have good sex!" is a mother of two and married to Fred Westheimer. And does her husband ever attend the lectures?
The petite, motherly sex therapist quipped, "I never let my husband come to my lectures because he would raise his hand and I'd have to recognize him. And he'd say, ‘Don’t listen to her. It's all talk.’”

Dr. Ruth’s legacy goes beyond sex, or even being honest about sex. Far beyond. Last November, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced Dr. Ruth would become the state's honorary ambassador to loneliness. This may seem trite or ridiculous, but, to repeat her message in the newspaper story above: “Everyone needs to know that he or she is not alone or abnormal.”

That message from Dr. Ruth is a message that people very much need today.