The Doctor Is In

by Ruth K. Westheimer

  Of all the talk-show appearances I’ve made over the years, the one that undoubtedly got the biggest laugh occurred on David Letterman. Dave asked me if I’d received any interesting questions lately. I said a young man had called in not with a question but a comment. He said that his girlfriend liked to toss onion rings over his erect penis. The audience immediately began to howl, and Dave pretended to be outraged, stood up, and walked offstage. The guest after me was the baseball pitcher Tug McGraw, who kept mentioning onion rings in his end of the conversation, eliciting more laughter. And the audience at home got to play along as the producers quickly put together a picture of a plate of onion rings that they flashed at each station break. They continued to use that image each time I was on Letterman, and people still bring up that show to me all the time.

  I recognize that with such a story, I was pushing my own boundary lines, being more of a comedienne than a sex therapist. But first of all, this was a real story, not a joke that I made up. And the truth is, the more entertaining I was, the more I was asked back—and the better I could push the important messages I had to give. I’m old-fashioned and a square, but I’m not dumb!

  In fact, I’m not good at telling actual jokes. And yet I can make people laugh, whether in large groups or one-on-one. Much of that ability comes from my spirit. I don’t go around with a long face; usually I’m smiling. At what? I actually look for things to smile about. If I’m going to a concert later that night and I start to feel in a bad mood, I think about the wonderful melodies I’ll be hearing later. I make a conscious effort to be positive. And if you want the most joie de vivre in your life, that’s what you must do as well. Negative thoughts will pop into your head, as they do to me and everybody. But why give in to those thoughts and allow your mood to be dragged downward? My suggestion is to fight off the temptation to go negative and work at being positive. Try it out and see what happens. I’m willing to bet you find the experience worth repeating again and again.

  While I enjoyed being recognized by people as I walked down the street, or having the men on fire and garbage trucks honk and wave as they drove by, the reason I appreciated being a celebrity was that it allowed me to communicate my messages about safer sex to a much wider audience. As proud as I am of what I’ve done, more importantly I helped open the door for the spread of reliable information about sex across every possible avenue. Today you’ll hear and see discussions about every sexual topic in every medium. Of course, some of this information is erroneous, and that’s the downside of popularizing the topic of sex. But some of the basic messages—such as using condoms to protect yourself against the spread of disease—have gone viral, and that’s a good thing. Teenage pregnancy rates are down, and that’s in part because so many more teens got the message about the importance of condom use.

  While I ask the most personal questions of people who come to my office with a sex problem, I never ask a personal question in public. That’s not to say that people don’t ask me personal questions in public. I especially have a hard time going to the ladies’ room in restaurants and theaters because I’m often cornered by some woman who desperately needs my advice. Sometimes I give them a quick answer. Other times, I smile sweetly and say, “Sorry, but I can’t help you.” If I’m out with another woman, very often I ask her to accompany me to the ladies’ room just to protect me!

  Vera Wang

  The following story emphasizes how I operate. Pierre was going to a party to celebrate his fortieth high school reunion; since he knew I wasn’t busy that night, he asked me if I wanted to go. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t go to a private affair like this, but it turns out that Vera Wang had been a member of his class, and the party was to be held at her fabulous Park Avenue apartment. I love my apartment in Washington Heights for its great views of the Hudson River, but it’s not quite up to the type of place I imagined Vera to have. Plus it would give me the chance to meet some of Pierre’s friends and learn more about him. And so I accepted.

  The apartment was well worth the visit—vast rooms filled with exquisite furniture, all very tastefully done, which you’d expect from a fashion icon. I’d met Vera several times at functions where the famous gather, but our relationship was of the air-kiss variety. Seeing her in this environment, interacting with her old friends, allowed me to see a side of this famous fashion designer that I otherwise would not have been privy to.

  It was late spring of 2007, a time when my life was in flux. I’d had an office in a building on 73rd Street and Lexington Avenue devoted to the medical profession for twenty-some odd years, but the owners decided they wanted to turn it into co-ops, and so they gave us all the boot—with only thirty days’ notice. That was ridiculous on so many counts, especially since it took them years to get the work started, and so they lost out on all that rent. But while some in the building wanted to hire a lawyer to fight the evictions in court, that’s not my style. If they didn’t want me, I didn’t want to be there. Thus I spread the word that Dr. Ruth was about to be homeless—or at least that’s how I put it.

  One woman who was attending the party, Leslie Rahl, had remained loyal to the island of Manhattan. When she heard my tale of woe—and believe me, I was telling everyone, because you never know—she said: “Dr. Ruth, I can’t have you homeless. I have extra space in my office, so I want you to move in with me.”

  You know how some people say they jump up and down for joy but they never really move a muscle? I actually jumped up and down. It’s not that I couldn’t have found space, but the whole process of looking was one I didn’t have time for. And when I went to see Leslie’s offices, they were fabulous—high up, with great views of the Chrysler Building. I’ve been with Leslie ever since, and when she moved, she took me with her, even putting my name on the lease, though she doesn’t charge me. All she wants is that I bring with me my joie de vivre. She says my energy and good spirits are worth more than any money I could pay her, and who am I to disagree? I make sure to take her out to lunch regularly, and if she asks me to go to a charity fund-raiser, I’m there. But when I say it’s good to be Dr. Ruth, in this instance no one would disagree.

  And that leads me to one last story for this chapter. I was in the Sea Grill, a restaurant where I often go, and one of the waiters took me aside to tell me that he’d heard me talk about testicular cancer and the importance of self-examination. He’d examined himself, found a lump, and went to see a doctor, and it turned out that it had been cancer. He credited me for saving his life. Helping people in this way was exactly the reason I’d wanted to become a doctor as a young woman. It doesn’t happen to me every day, but I know that I’ve saved some people’s lives and helped a lot more in other ways by preventing them from getting a disease or having an unintended pregnancy. And to me, that’s what is really important about being Dr. Ruth. Fame came to me late enough in life that if I’d never ridden in a limousine or attended a premier or had any of the other perks that come with celebrity, I would have been fine. It’s fun, but I never let it go to my head. But what does give me immense satisfaction is that I’ve been able to help so many people in important ways. Not the least of which is by teaching them to have terrrrific sex!

  When I was ten, I’d wanted to be a doctor. Maybe at that age I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I knew I wanted to help people. The joy that one can find in giving—be it money or assistance or maybe even just your ear to someone in need of one—cannot be matched by any other means. There’s the joy of sex, the joy of success, the joy of acquiring an object you desire—but the satisfaction that comes with giving is a very powerful emotion that you can’t get any other way. So if you want to experience joie de vivre in all its forms, you have to be open to giving of yourself. You don’t have to be a saint and give every second of every day, but you also shouldn’t be a miser, because the person you’ll be cheating the most is yourself.

  CHAPTER VII

  How Celebrity Influenced My Life—and Could Influence Yours

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p; I began my journey to earning the title of Dr. Ruth on radio, but it was television that really made me a household name, first with guest appearances on such national shows as The Tonight Show, David Letterman, and Today, and then on my own shows. When I was merely a guest with a segment that was no more than five minutes on the subject of sex, the time flew by; these shows were easy to do. But when I had my own show, transforming myself from interviewee to interviewer and having to fill thirty or sixty minutes with entertaining television . . . that was more of a challenge. And one reason was how little I knew of American pop culture.

  Having grown up in four different countries before finally settling in the States—and not being one to watch much TV when I did move here—if I had to take a test in American popular culture, I’d be the first one to admit that I’d fail, which is a bit ironic when you think that I’ve actually had a small part to play in American pop culture. In any case, my lack of knowledge did cause some problems for the producers of my own TV shows, as they had to fully brief me to make sure that I didn’t come off sounding like a stranger in my own country.

  Let me give you one example. I was having my hair and makeup done before taping one of my shows, and Marsha Lebby, one of the show’s producers, was talking to me about one of the guests we were having on the next segment.

  “Today’s guest is Bianca Jagger.”

  “Am I supposed to know who that is?” I asked over the sound of the hair dryer.

  “She’s the ex-wife of Mick Jagger,” the producer said, figuring that would tell me all I needed to know.

  However, my next question was: “And who is this Mick Jagger?”

  See what I mean? What I know about rock music could fill a thimble. And yet I also know some rock stars. U2 thanked me when they received a Grammy one year, used me to do an ad for one of their albums (Zooropa), and then invited me to a concert. I went backstage afterward and talked with Bono and the other band members, and Bono gave me a quote for my book Musically Speaking. Elton John is a fan of mine. And in the next chapter I’ll tell you my Paul McCartney story. So while there are plenty of older people who aren’t up on the latest musical trends, few of them actually can say they’ve met a pop star. But I don’t let this dichotomy bother me in the least. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet my music idols, men like Beethoven and Bach, but I am friends with some of the top classical conductors, such as Zubin Mehta, so it’s not that I’m culturally illiterate at all. It’s just that those I admire are a little long in the tooth, or maybe even not around anymore.

  I don’t want to leave you with the impression that I can’t be starstruck. Before I was very well-known, I dragged Fred to see a Broadway show, Private Lives, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I was such a big fan of Elizabeth Taylor that even though it was raining, I insisted that we wait outside the stage door afterward to get a glimpse of her as she left.

  “Ruthie, it’s raining, there are all these people out here, so you can’t even get close. So why do we have to hang around and get soaking wet?”

  “Fred, how many times are you going to see Elizabeth Taylor in person?”

  “But I just saw her in person on the stage!”

  “Fred, you don’t understand.”

  Maybe if it had been one of Fred’s idols, like Tony Randall, he would have been the one dragging me out into a rainy night. In any case, I do think it’s special to see celebrities; it’s just that who I consider a celebrity doesn’t exactly match the opinion of the average American, especially younger ones. And speaking of Ms. Taylor, I did finally get to meet her. There was a big AIDS fund-raiser at the Jacob Javits Center, and I was invited onstage with her for some press pictures before the event began. And she knew who I was! That totally amazed me—again, I knew her from seeing her movies when I was much younger and still a complete nobody. To have Elizabeth Taylor look at me with those violet eyes, smile, and say, “Hi, Dr. Ruth,” was just thrilling.

  And I haven’t lost my admiration for Burton and Taylor. During a recent visit to South Africa, I made sure to visit the church where they got married. So you see, I can be as starstruck as anyone else. Just not about Mick Jagger!

  Fantasy

  Many people fantasize about famous people. And when I talk fantasy, I mean that in their heads they have sex with their idols. In my opinion, that’s fine, at least to a point. (More on that in a minute.) If you’ve been with the same person for a long time, sometimes your libido needs a little boost, and using fantasy is one way to achieve that. Also, if your head is filled with negative thoughts that impede your ability to become sexually aroused—say you have a boss that’s always making nasty comments that you play over and over in your head, including when you’re in bed with your partner—substituting a fantasy about your favorite celebrity can help you to push those nasty thoughts aside so that you can have sex with your partner. So using fantasy appropriately is one way to enjoy life a little more.

  On the other hand, fantasizing about your next-door neighbor can be problematic. The reason is that when you fantasize about a celebrity, the odds of that fantasy ever coming true are almost zero, so those fantasies don’t pose any danger to your actual relationship. But if you’re fantasizing about the guy or gal next door, well, the possibility of acting out on that fantasy can drive an imaginary or actual wedge between you and your partner. Better to fantasize about famous unobtainable people rather than someone who might take you up on turning your fantasy into a reality!

  The problem with giving advice is that there’s often an exception that proves your advice wrong, at least if pushed to its limits. I knew a young woman who asked me to introduce her to Jerry Seinfeld. She had a serious crush on him and wanted to turn her fantasies into reality. Now, I’d had Jerry as a guest on my TV show a couple of times, but it’s not as if we were friends. But more important, this young women wasn’t his type, and he didn’t need any help from me in finding dates. Her problem was that she did need such help. By entering so deeply into her fantasy world that she lost track of reality, she was making that process of finding a partner even more difficult. So while fantasy can help with joie de vivre, if pushed to the extreme as with this young woman’s case, it can also be damaging. With everything in life, moderation more often than not is the key to actually getting the most out of life.

  Because of my specialty, when I use the term “faking it,” most people jump to the conclusion that I’m talking about faking it in bed. And of course in that sense, I do talk about it quite often. When it comes to sex, I tell women not to fake orgasms—or at least, not regularly. Once in a while if they’re tired, then it’s OK. But if they never reveal to their partner that they’re not getting sexual satisfaction but instead always fake having orgasms, that’s a big problem. It can lead to a severe problem when it comes to fulfilling your requirements for joie de vivre, as sexual satisfaction is an important component of that. But here I’d like to cover the topic of faking it in other contexts, because I say that when you’re not in the bedroom but out in society, it’s all right to fake it when needed. And since I’m often being introduced to people I don’t know (even if I should), I’ve become quite good at it.

  Since the point of faking is not to let the other person know that you have no idea of who they are, it’s an art that you have to practice to get good at. And I get a lot of practice because I meet so many people that it’s impossible for me to remember them all. When someone comes up to me and starts talking to me as if they’re my oldest friend, I just go with the flow of conversation and hope for the best. If they say something that triggers a memory and I realize who they are, then I keep talking. On the other hand, if after a minute or so I realize that even if I shook their hand ten years ago at a party, the connection is no deeper than that, I smile, say, “Excuse me,” and walk away.

  Of course, sometimes I’m in the shoes of the person I just mentioned. Someone comes up to me and I can tell that they’re famous, but I have no idea who they are. But they
know me—if not because we’ve met before, at least they know I’m Dr. Ruth. At a movie opening, for example, I know the room is full of celebrities, but I don’t know most of them. So what do I do? Smile a lot, pose for pictures with them, and then, when they walk away . . . ask someone else who they were. Fortunately, at most of these events, the conversations never get very deep; the risk of saying the wrong thing is minor. And if it’s a party after a movie opening, then at least I know who the stars of the movie are!

  But when I was taping my TV shows, I wasn’t supposed to fake it. On camera I had to appear at least as knowledgeable as my audience. However, when you’ve done 495 shows and you’re “celebrity handicapped,” that can be difficult. Luckily for me, in a TV studio there were always “faking aids” for the host, cards held up next to the camera or a teleprompter giving me the questions I needed to ask (though despite having these, sometimes my producer, John Lollos, was left scrambling, shouting last-minute instructions into the earpiece of the stage manager, Dean Gordon, to make sure I asked the right follow-up question!).

  Most of my shows aired on Lifetime Television, though they seemed to change titles regularly. The Dr. Ruth Show was first. Then I jumped to a syndicated show that also aired in some other countries, including England and Hong Kong. It was called Ask Dr. Ruth. Then I went back to Lifetime for The All New Dr. Ruth Show, which was followed by What’s Up, Dr. Ruth? The purpose of that show, aimed at teens, was to broaden Lifetime’s appeal to the younger set. Then they changed the format again, and it was called You’re on the Air with Dr. Ruth. In the fall of 1992, I moved to Nostalgia Television with a show called Never Too Late.