Doctor Truth

Beloved sexpert and pop-culture phenom DR. RUTH WESTHEIMER delivers her signature moxie in a new documentary about her life

- Sloane Crosley

If it turns you on, freaks you out, or seems remotely titillating, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the world’s most famous sex therapist, has been asked about it. At 91 years old, she is impossible to stump. Just try it. Her still-girlish face has two go-to expressions: poker and delight. The former was honed after decades of fans’ asking this German grandma the dirtiest questions they could muster; the latter stems from an ever-present joie de vivre. (A typical tweet: “Today is Fat Tuesday. I prefer to call it Sexy Tuesday, what about you?”)

And while her audience has tended to overshare with the good doctor, she has carefully maintained the revelations as a one-way street. But now, for those curious about the creation of her cult of personality as well as her incredibly varied journey comes Ask Dr. Ruth, a documentary premiering on Hulu this month. Directed by Ryan White (Serena, The Case Against 8), the film follows the divergent periods of her life as a Holocaust survivor (she prefers the term “orphan of the Holocaust” because she was “never in the camps” but put on a train to Switzerland by her mother and grandmother at age 10); a teenage sniper in the Haganah (the precursor to the Israel Defense Forces); an academic; and, finally, the Dr. Ruth that America knows best. “The happy munchkin of sex” has a groundbreaking radio show (Sexually Speaking), at least five TV shows, a board game, multiple commercials and sitcom cameos, and 46 books under her belt. Her very tiny belt.

“I’ve always made the best out of being small,” she says, as we sit across from each other in her apartment in Manhattan’s Washington Heights with its expansive view of the Hudson River.

[Given] all the things that I’ve survived, I have an obligation to live large and make a dent in this world.”