Celebrity sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer points to an alarming increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases among older patients, saying a change in awareness – and attitude – is needed.
Ruth Westheimer
Sex therapist; radio/TV personality.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer may best be known for having pioneered talking explicitly about sex on radio and television, but as it turns out, that is only a small part of her rich and diversified life. Born in Germany in 1928, Dr. Westheimer went to Switzerland at the age of 10 to escape the Holocaust, which wiped out her entire immediate family. At the age of 16, she went to then Palestine. She joined the Haganah, the Israeli freedom fighters, and was trained to be a sniper and was seriously wounded in a bomb blast. She later moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne and, in 1956, went to the U.S., where she obtained her Master's Degree in Sociology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research and Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in the Interdisciplinary Study of the Family from Columbia University Teacher's College.
Her work for Planned Parenthood led her to study human sexuality under Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center, where she became an Adjunct Associate Professor. She is an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U., and a fellow of both Calhoun College at Yale and Butler College at Princeton, where at the latter two she taught a seminar from 2005-2010, as well as a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. She has her own private practice in New York and lectures worldwide.
She is the author of 35 books and the executive producer of five documentaries. Shifting Sands: Bedouin Women at the Crossroads is currently being shown across the country on PBS stations, and she has finished filming her fifth, about the Circassians, which is in post-production. She has her own web page (www.drruth.com.) and can be found on Twitter at AskDrRuth. She has started her own channel on YouTube where segments from the almost 500 TV shows she hosted can be found. Dr. Westheimer has two children, four grandchildren, and resides in New York City.
Her work for Planned Parenthood led her to study human sexuality under Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center, where she became an Adjunct Associate Professor. She is an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U., and a fellow of both Calhoun College at Yale and Butler College at Princeton, where at the latter two she taught a seminar from 2005-2010, as well as a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. She has her own private practice in New York and lectures worldwide.
She is the author of 35 books and the executive producer of five documentaries. Shifting Sands: Bedouin Women at the Crossroads is currently being shown across the country on PBS stations, and she has finished filming her fifth, about the Circassians, which is in post-production. She has her own web page (www.drruth.com.) and can be found on Twitter at AskDrRuth. She has started her own channel on YouTube where segments from the almost 500 TV shows she hosted can be found. Dr. Westheimer has two children, four grandchildren, and resides in New York City.
