New Documentary Traces Life of Legendary Sex Therapist Dr. Ruth

A new documentary about 90-year-old Dr. Ruth Westheimer, America’s most famous sex therapist, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to an enthusiastic audience, many too young to even know who she is.

Ask Doctor Ruth, directed by Ryan White, traces her life story beginning with being dropped off at an orphanage in Switzerland after the Nazis took her Jewish parents to a concentration camp, to her career as a radio sex therapist in the 1980s, to more decades as a media celebrity.

Her earliest memories, culled from her own diary, tell the story of Karola Ruth Siegal, born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1928, who became a refugee at 10 years old as part of the “Kindertransport” out of Nazi Germany. From there she was moved to an Israeli kibbutz as a pre-teen, where she fell in love with a boy, who is still alive and featured in the film.

After the war, she was trained as a sniper in the Israeli army, met her first husband, moved to Paris, studied at the Sorbonne, married her second husband, moved to New York and married her third husband, with whom she had two children. “The first two marriages were legal love affairs,” she says. “The third was a real marriage.” At the premiere of the movie, all four of her grandchildren were in attendance.

At the age of 42, she went back to school, earning a doctorate in education from Columbia University in New York City. Shortly afterwards, she got a job at Planned Parenthood, where she was asked to fill in as a radio guest for someone she worked with. And a radio star was born.

Her show Sexually Speaking ran from 1980 to 1990 and was the first radio show ever that talked about sex. During the past 39 years she has worked as a sex therapist, written 40 books, appeared on hundreds of television shows, and has inspired many people, including myself, to enter the field of sex therapy.

Among the gem quotes she has told women for years is "Tell a guy what you want.” Another classic is "Ladies, you sold 200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies as a kid, and you can't even sell your man on wearing a condom. Come on."

She also says, "Any man who ejaculates prematurely can visit a sex therapist and with just a few lessons can learn to last longer." Dr. Ruth is known for frank statements such as "Don't criticize in the sack, discuss constructively later," and "Your sex life is not supposed to come to an end just because you've hit a certain age." Then there’s "When it comes to sex, the most important six inches are the ones between your ears."

She also announced that she will be re-doing content and re-publishing her 1995 book Sex for Dummies, which she says will be geared to the millennial generation, who she notes “have lost the art of conversation because they’re always on the iPhone.”

At 90, she says, “I’m still talking about sex from morning until night.”

The documentary, produced by Magnolia Pictures, is available on Hulu.com. A trailer is available on YouTube.

Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures and Hulu.com