Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019 Page 53fighting for the establishment of a
Jewish state in Palestine — and
became a sniper, ‘Luckily, I never had
to kill anybody,’ she says, ‘but if I’d
had to, I could have.’
She eventually moved to New York
and was well into her 50s by the time
her career as a sex therapist took off.
Her incredible story is told in a new
documentary, Ask Dr. Ruth and, as
she herself explains in the film: ‘I
have an obligation to live large and
make a dent in this world.’
At just 4ft 7in, Dr. Ruth has lived
larger than most. When Burt Rey-
nolds appeared on her show in 1984,
‘I thought, “here I am, an immigrant,
a refugee, an orphan of the Holo-
caust. I’m sitting with Burt Reynolds
and I’m touching his moustache!” ’
Comedian Robin Williams did a skit
about her during one of his live shows
and she once advised a somewhat
relieved-looking David Letterman
not to bother searching for a wom-
an’s elusive G-spot as, ‘we have
enough problems with those things
that we know about’.S
He met Princess Diana at an
awards ceremony in New York
two years before her death,
‘and I thought she was won-
derful,’ says Dr. Ruth. ‘I thought her
contribution to mankind was in how
humane she was.’
Dr. Ruth, who herself was one of the
most calming voices during the
height of the eighties Aids panic,
admired how much Diana did for the
cause. ‘And when she shook hands
with somebody who had AIDS [in
1987], that was remarkable.’
Did Diana ever ask Dr. Ruth for
advice? ‘No, she did not, but I can tell
you if she would have asked me for
advice, you would not have known
about it!’ she says.
‘I never ever would have talked
about it. But, of course, famous peo-
ple did ask me for help. They were
like anybody else and they would
often tell me their problems because
they knew I knew what I was talking
about and wasn’t just a celebrity
talking off the top of my head.
‘I was also fortunate because myoffice was not in a fancy part of the
city and was in a building where there
were many doctors, so no one would
know who they were going in to see.’
For a woman who spends most of
her time talking about sex, Dr. Ruth
is surprisingly discreet and, if not
prudish, certainly conservative.
She is in favour of both marriage
and monogamy, ‘and I believe in
relationships and I believe that
people should be with a partner.
I’m not saying people should
have the same partner their
whole lifetime — I was married
three times. But I believe in the
importance of good sex and a
good relationship.’
Moreover, at 91 (and a half),
she still has the ability to shock.
‘Now, I’m going to say one thing
to the people of Great Britain
and it’s not going to be popular,
but nobody — no man and woman,
no two men and no two women —
has any business being naked in bed
if they haven’t decided to have sex.
‘So this idea that they can be naked
in bed and then say: “I changed my
mind” is dangerous. In America,
there is a saying that God didn’t give
men enough blood for two heads and
I say it, even though I know some
people disapprove.’
She is in favour of pornography,
although she prefers the term ‘erotic
material’, and is all for couples using
it to ‘introduce some new concepts
to your sex life’, as long as neither
party finds it offensive.
When it comes to us Brits, despite
our having phased out top hats, she
still finds us more reserved than our
American counterparts. ‘But the
issues are the same,’ she says.
‘Before, women might have com-
plained about their orgasms, but now
I talk a lot about loneliness, for peo-
ple of all ages, even young people.
But I think what did change [in Brit-
ain] is that you took all the knowl-
edge from American sex researchers
such as Masters and Johnson and
Helen Singer Kaplan [Dr. Ruth’s
mentor] and used it. People are more
willing to say “orgasm” now.’
After almost half a century advising
us, she says no question has surprised
her, ‘but they’ve definitely changed’.Where once women fretted about their
performance, now ‘I get more ques-
tions about taking the time for sex,
making sure you have a relationship
and you aren’t hopping into bed.’
And while she worries about millen-
nials’ fixation with their phones, she
has noted that ‘younger people
accept more than they used to that
their parents or even grandparents
do engage in sex’.
As for the older among us, Dr.
Ruth advises: ‘No sex in the evening
when they’re tired. The best way
for older people to engage in sex
is after a good night’s sleep.’
Her interest in the subject
had first been piqued when, as
a youngster, she discovered a
book on her parents’ book-
shelves entitled, The Ideal
Marriage — a sex manual
which deemed itself ‘explicit,
detailed and direct’.
Yet, if that was a normal
moment of childhood explora-
tion any semblance of normality in
her childhood was to come to an
abrupt end with the onset of the
World War II. In 1938, her father was
sent to a labour camp by the Nazis
and, realising Ruth was in danger, her
mother and grandmother put her on a
train to Switzerland where she spent
her remaining childhood in an
orphanage.
It was the last time she saw her fam-
ily. ‘I always say my parents gave me
life twice,’ says Dr. Ruth, ‘once when I
was born and then when they made
the sacrifice of sending their only child
to safety. I still think of them often.’
Does she wonder what they would
have made of her career? ‘I sometimes
shudder thinking of it,’ she admits,
‘because they were old-fashioned. But
when they realised how old-fashioned
I am and how I’m all for marriage, I
think they would have been OK.
‘And I wouldn’t have predicted it, but
not having the constraints of a tradi-
tional family meant I could [later]
make all the decisions about my life
and my profession by myself.’
She married her first husband, an
Israeli soldier, in 1950. They moved to
Paris where she studied psychology at
the Sorbonne. But when her husbanddecided to return to Israel, they
divorced and she sailed with a
French boyfriend to New York.
She became pregnant, married
him and, although the relationship
didn’t last — she once said, ‘he was
wonderful but I was very bored and
the relationship needed more than
good sex’ — her love affair with
America did.
She remained in New York, where
she lives to this day, and supported
herself and her young daughter
Miriam, now 62, by working as a
maid while also studying for a
Master’s degree.
By the Sixties, she was working
for Planned Parenthood, a birth
control organisation in Harlem,
and a career in sex education was
born. In 1980, when a New York
radio station couldn’t find anyone
willing to discuss sex on their show,
Dr. Ruth did it for free and became
such a hit she was offered her own
radio show, Sexually Speaking.
It led to her TV show, Good Sex!,
which turned her into a worldwide
star and frequent chat show guest.
Both Terry Wogan and Jonathan
Ross hosted her on their shows
(she in turn declared them ‘very
sexy’), as did the acerbically bril-
liant Joan Rivers.
Were the two women friends? ‘No,
not great friends,’ she admits. ‘A
friend has to be earned by a long-
standing relationship. But I had a
great time on her programme [Can
We Talk?] and she flew me over on
Concorde and gave me a driver
with a fancy British car.
‘She said the best orgasm she
ever had was when she could say:
“Charge it to Saks Fifth Avenue!” ’
One wonders what her third hus-
band, engineer Fred Westheimer,
made of his wife’s career. They mar-
ried in 1961 and had a son, Joel,
now 55. Dr. Ruth says: ‘The last one
was the real marriage.
‘I was very lucky that he was
proud of my career and, as my son
said, he didn’t mind cooking
dinners when I was out giving lec-
tures. Whenever people would ask
Fred about his sex life, he would
say, “The shoemaker’s children
don’t get shoes!” ’ She giggles.F
ReD died in 1997, ‘and
every day I miss him, but I
don’t let it paralyse me,’ she
says. ‘Of course I do feel
lonely but I know what to do
about that.
‘I go out a lot and last night I saw
the band Queen featuring Adam
Lambert as the lead singer, at Mad-
ison Square Garden with 20,000
cheering young fans, so that’s one
pastime that keeps me alive.’
Despite her frankness about sex,
her own love life is strictly off lim-
its. ‘Do I have a boyfriend? Next
question! But I will tell you that
after Fred died, I did not actively
look for somebody.
‘I have not tried internet dating,
but I’m not against it and I do not
want other people to be lonely.’
She once described Meghan
Markle as lucky to have met and
married Prince Harry in today’s
climate, ‘where everyone is on their
phones’ and where the internet
‘gives people unreasonable expec-
tations like a Prince Charming will
come riding in on a horse’.
But as she says now, with ‘a
divorced bi-racial woman [marry-
ing] a prince’, she is glad that, ‘even
the royal household is going for-
ward in terms of the 21st century.’
So would she ever offer Harry and
Meghan any advice on their sex
life? ‘even if they would come to
see me,’ she says, giggling, ‘you
know that I would not tell you!’
O ASK Dr. Ruth comes to Picture-
house Cinemas for one day only
on Thursday, August 29. Following
its theatrical release, it will be
available for digital download
from September 9 and on DVD
from September 16.The world’s favourite
sexpert: Dr Ruth
WestheimerPictures: ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY/ LIONSGATE
Sexual awakening:
Dustin Hoffman and
Anne Bancroft in
1967’s The Graduate