Page 52 Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019
by Lina Das
exclaims: ‘Who’s laughing now?’).
In June Dr. Ruth was in England to
take part in an Oxford Union
debate on pornography, ‘and just
last night I was [in a hotel] and
plenty of young people recognised
me. At the age of 91 and a half —
you must say the half — that makes
me very happy.’ There is little that
doesn’t make Dr. Ruth happy —
she is one of the most joyful people
you are ever likely to meet. But it is
a joy which has been extremely
hard won. Born in Germany in
1928, the only child of Orthodox
Jews, she was just ten when she
lost both her parents in the Holo-
caust. She spent the war in an
orphanage in Switzerland then, in
her early 20s, joined Haganah — an
underground militant organisation
A
S THE world’s most
famous sex therapist, Dr.
Ruth Westheimer is the
author of more than 40
books, has fronted TV
advice shows and met everyone
from Princess Diana and Eliza-
beth Taylor to Presidents Obama,
Clinton and Trump.
Yet she remains unequivocal about one
of her proudest achievements: ‘It was
wonderful,’ she says, ‘to teach the British
about orgasms!’
Her TV show, Good Sex!, made for eye-
opening viewing when it aired on C4 in
the Eighties, but viewers couldn’t help
but warm to the diminutive therapist as
she talked about ‘rrrrrelationships’ and
‘errrrroticism’ in her distinctive German
burr, punctuating her advice with that
trademark high-pitched giggle.
She revolutionised the way people —
not least us uptight Brits — talked more
openly about sex, ‘And I loved coming to
England,’ she says. ‘It made me smile to
think of the British with their umbrellas
and top hats being in bed.’
Dr. Ruth is 91 (which explains the top
hat reference), though in matters of sex,
she shows no signs of slowing down.
She has just finished work on a new
edition of her best-selling book, Sex For
Dummies — which even made it into an
episode of Friends (Ross was given the
guide as a joke, but after impressing
Rachel with some new moves, he
She shocked Sixties
America with her VERY
frank advice. Now, aged
91½, Dr Ruth’s story has
been made into a film.
And, finds LINA DAS,
she’s still on a mission
SEX to perk up your love life
INTERVIEW
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