With a career now in its third decade, Dr. Ruth Westheimer has established herself as America's foremost figure in sex education, making a name for herself with the candor and warmth with which she approaches the most sensitive of topics. Dr. Ruth got her start with a 15-minute radio show in 1980. Since then she has published sex advice books at a rate more than one per year while still teaching, maintaining a private practice and becoming a mainstay on the college lecture circuit.
Dr. Ruth will speak Monday at Hillel, 611 Langdon St. at 7:30 p.m. The interview will run in full in the fall edition of The Hillel Voice.
Is there any area of great ignorance you see a lot in meeting people?
There is a tremendous amount of misconception and myth out there. The ones that are most bothersome are about pregnancy. The myths persist that you can't get pregnant if you are doing it standing up or if the woman doesn't have sexual satisfaction, then you do have unintended pregnancies. But in these talks, you also find that we have many fewer unintended pregnancies than we had some years ago. So that's why this sexuality education is really important and helpful.
A lot of venues for educating young people about sex include music or comedy. How important do you think this is?
Well, I don't include comedy or music. However, in the Jewish tradition, in the Talmud, it says that a lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained. So if somebody can use humor'not jokes, but humor in terms of humor in the situation, I think that that is very welcome. You visited my Web site, right?
Yes.
Let me add something that is not yet on my Web site. I'm going to be a professor at Princeton, teaching a course on the Jewish family, and I am also going to be for the next four years a fellow at Yale. And I'm giving a keynote address at Harvard at a conference on women in science. Now you have the latest on me. And just this morning, I got my newest book in the mail. ... So it's a pretty good day for me.
So with all the things you do'teaching, writing, appearances'what's your favorite part of what you do?
That's a good question, because the answer is the combination. I keep up my private practice. I work there about five hours a week. I just came back from San Francisco State University, where I gave a talk to 800 students and got a standing ovation. ... So I like that combination of keeping up the academic life, my clinical life, because I learn something new everyday. ... Not bad for a 74-year-old Jewish grandmother.
But when you say that you keep up your private practice, do you think it's weird for your patients to have a celebrity for a doctor?
Some of them might feel reluctant, but I work out of a clinic setting, where people come in and don't say my name, and just say, \You'll be seeing Ruth today,"" and it's very private.
With the variety of stuff you've done, even with movie roles, is there anything you've always wanted to do but have missed out on?
I did water ski, but I gave that up because I thought it was enough. I still winter ski. But is there something that I've always wanted to do but haven't done yet? I can't think of anything. But I hope that I can keep doing what I'm doing for many more years.
That sounds like a reasonable goal.
Actually, I thought of something else. I would like to be able to bring peace to the Middle East.
What do you think of your status as a public figure? Is this something you always wanted to be?
No, if somebody would have told me that this would happen, I would have said, ""You must be kidding."" In my wildest dreams, I would not have thought I would be Dr. Ruth and that everyone would recognize me. And I have no problems with it, because I also know how to get my privacy and spend time with my children and grandchildren. So I know how to protect myself.
You mentioned your children. A lot of people dread talking to their children about sex more than anything else. You talk about sex for a living. How did you do it?
I was exactly like everybody else. I was tongue-tied, and luckily, I became famous later in life, and my daughter was already out of the house and my son was already in college. I think that helped. They were already out of the house when I started on the radio. But when they were smaller, I tried to do my best, but I was uptight like everybody else.
Do you have any special projects coming up that you can tell us about?
I just did two children's books for Golden Books. ... And I'm doing a book right now on mid-life opportunities. Not just sex, but starting a new profession and retirement ... and I'm doing a book right now with the University of Pennsylvania Press coming out very shortly. It's called ""Music in My Life."" It's about music from my childhood in Germany, the patriotic songs in Switzerland and songs of my time in Israel and some songs of France and the United States.
