“Dr. Ruth” (Ruth Westheimer)
6/4/1928–Present
Ruth was without a man only for brief intervals. Before her 1955 divorce from David was final, she fell in love with Dan and persuaded him to sail to the U.S. with her. The day after they landed, Ruth applied for a scholarship available to victims of the Nazis. A day later, she won it to pursue a master’s degree in sociology. Shortly thereafter, Ruth and Dan secured $1/hour jobs at the cultural division of the Consulate of France.
After Ruth happily discovered she was pregnant, the couple married. Miriam was born in 1957, but in 1958 Ruth and Dan divorced. He returned to Europe, leaving Ruth the sole support of Miriam and herself. Ruth struggled financially, as did many single mothers. She was a relentless student, however, and taught herself English by reading magazines and watching TV.
By 1959 she’d completed her master’s, and for a couple of years Ruth worked half-time on general public-health research as she simultaneously worked to get a PhD. Sadly, in 1961 she failed the oral exam; however, the sunshine that year was that Ruth met and married the love of her life, Manfred Westheimer, an American citizen who had lived in America since age fourteen. In 1962 their son, Joel, was born. Ruth loved the USA, and in 1965 became a citizen.
Ruth began to get coauthor credit for publications in scholarly journals before she was employed by Planned Parenthood in 1967. She trained and supervised two dozen women to collect the contraceptive and abortion histories of 2,000 women in Harlem. She initially thought this talk about sex was too narrowly focused, but then concluded that the information was valuable. Ruth used this work experience for her PhD dissertation, and by 1970 completed the degree. She graduated with Kappa Delta Pi honors and was placed on the dean’s list. That summer, at Lehman College in the Bronx, Ruth began to lecture, instruct, and publish in scientific journals that specialized in teaching others how to teach sex education.
In 1974, after taking a three-month sex therapy course from a professor who had worked with Masters and Johnson, Ruth decided to become a sex therapist. For part of the training, she watched through a one-way mirror as her instructor performed sex therapy with a patient who agreed to be observed in exchange for free therapy. Initially, Ruth was embarrassed. Later, when she herself began to work with clients, she was again embarrassed. After two years of training—and no longer embarrassed—Ruth became a part-time certified psychosexual therapist and part-time professor, and published three academic papers.
On May 5, 1980, Ruth’s radio career began on a Sunday late-night talk show, Getting to Know. Told to name her show, she called it Sexually Speaking. Paid $25/hour for a fifteen-minute spiel, Ruth calculated the cost of travel to Manhattan and back and realized she was losing money. She was encouraged, however, by the increasing volume of mail her listeners sent.
After a year, Ruth asked for live phone calls. She was not only granted this request, but also her program was expanded to an hour and moved earlier to 10:00 p.m. Among men, the most prevalent issue was premature ejaculation, and among women it was reaching orgasm. By her second or third show, her new nickname had become “Dr. Ruth,” and her former $25/hour salary increased to $100/hour.
Ruth was offered a couple of book advances, and in 1983 Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex was released. The resultant media barrage included The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. Next, various TV shows requested that Ruth appear with household-name interviewers such as Dan Rather and David Letterman.
A few years later, Ruth became a full partner with NBC on the newly syndicated show Sexually Speaking. She was heard on ninety stations coast-to-coast, which made her a national celebrity. Having become popular with college students, she was invited to speak at universities. For two years in a row the College Campus Activity Board named her “Lecturer of the Year.” Ruth loved her fame, which included always getting good tables in restaurants, and strangers talking to her in the streets. Nonetheless, she continued to treat individual clients, teach part-time, and take college courses.
In 1984, Dr. Ruth entered homes via TV. Her program, first named Good Sex!, was later changed to The Dr. Ruth Show. In 1993 she expanded to a TV show in Israel, and continued her guest appearances on numerous popular shows, including those hosted by Johnny Carson. In 2009, Playboy magazine listed Dr. Ruth as #13 in a list of the fifty-five most important people in sex from the past fifty-five years. Dr. Ruth became so famous that she has wined and dined with Angela Merkel and Henry Kissinger and was hugged by President Obama.
In 2019, still popular and perky at age ninety-one, Ruth appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, among others. Today, at ninety-two, Dr. Ruth is still frisky. She supposedly hasn’t found a lover, but says she wouldn’t mind a good romp.
She had never planned to save her virginity for marriage, and of her three marriages, only the third lasted more than three years. She and her beloved Manfred had been married from 1961 to 1997 when he died. Ruth authored thirty books, the last of which is Roller Coaster Grandma: The Amazing Story of Dr. Ruth, published in 2018.
Unlike Margaret Sanger’s detractors, Dr. Ruth’s compose a very small minority, and most people smile when they hear her tagline: “Get Some.”