Dr. Ruth Westheimer on Sex, Survival and Her New Movie

In Israel, you carried a gun.
I've never killed anybody, but I was a very good sniper. In the documentary I'm showing the world that I could still put a Sten gun together if needed. Still, I would not touch a gun anymore.

When you came to New York in 1956 and studied with sex therapist Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan, did you learn that Freud was wrong?
He was sexually ignorant.

Vladimir Nabokov said that Freudians “believe that their troubles may be cured by a daily application of ancient Greek myths to their private parts."
Sex therapy is not like psychoanalysis, it's a short-term behavioral therapy. Freud should have taken a few lessons of mine. He would have learned something about female sexuality.

Why don't you use a cane? 
Instead of a cane, I take young guys and take their arms and make them walk with me, at the restaurant, the theater, anyplace I go. Because of the women's  liberation  you have to say, sometimes it can be women, too.

Is marriage old-fashioned, outmoded?
No, no, no, no! Marriage is here to stay. I don't mind if people don't get married, but I want them to have a relationship, to rely on somebody being there when they come home.

Did your husband attend your lectures about sex?
I didn't let my late husband come to any of my talks because he would have [joked], “It's all talk — the shoemaker's children don't have shoes.” He's in the movie. He comes out smelling like roses.

Why did you fall in love with him?
He was short — not as short as me — from Germany, Jewish, he emigrated to Portugal and then the U.S. because they were afraid Hitler would take Portugal. He was an engineer, very smart, and he played harmonica and the guitar and he was a superb good skier. I was even better than him.

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Skiing is a good metaphor for sex: you must take a risk, jump off a mountain, but wisely.
You're right.

How do people keep marriage lively in their AARP years?
Read my book Sex After 50, which I did with Pierre Lehu. I give specific  instructions,  like older people should have sex in the mornings. Get up, go to the bathroom, have a little breakfast and go back to bed. Not at night because they're tired and then the sex doesn't function as well.

Do you think older people should retire?
I'll tell you right loud and clear, tell all of my AARP friends not to retire, but to  rewire . Which means not necessarily taking another job, but enjoying that you don't have a strict schedule, but may do something that gives you pleasure: volunteer at a hospital, a shelter, your church or synagogue. Do something that keeps your brain working.

Do you have any regrets?
Well, I would've liked to be a little taller, but I learned to live with being 4 foot 7 — I've just lost half an inch. My grandchildren could go on the ride at an amusement park, but I was too short, so I had to stand there waving at them.

Didn't you have trouble kissing President Obama at a Planned Parenthood event?
I told President Obama, wait with your kiss, I need a box to stand on. So he waited patiently until they brought me a box I stood on, and he kissed me. And I have that picture hanging in my living room.