thank you welcome back to the show in the new york area dr ruth westheimer has become
somewhat of a cult figure she is a professor of human sexuality at the new york hospital
cornell university medical college she's also the host of a very popular call in radio program
entitled sexually speaking please welcome dr ruth westheimer
nice to see you tell me about your radio uh program all right i'll tell you about my
radio program it started with 15 minutes and uh a quarter after midnight also ticked on sundays
and in order to know if we really talk about the things that are of interest to people we ask
people to write letters and in mushrooms and as of september i'm on the air a whole hour live from 10
till 11 and i understand that about 653 phone calls come in that hour but i can only answer
about 25 to 30 and it's lots of fun and i do think that it's also of interest yes it well it must be
or you wouldn't have that kind of listenership now for people who are not in new york city
tell me what happens the people call in and what do they say what are they what happens is that
very often i do read some letters that i think are of interest in general and then i do take some
phone calls about about 20 phone calls no no but about what about about sex about sex specifically
but not only about sex um about relationships about sex education plant care about planned
parenthood contraception planned parenthood yeah that's right very often i do immediately
interrupt and i say do you use contraceptives and i like when are you using contraceptives
uh what i do like
i tell you david yes but only at parties
i do like that to think that it is a program that is serious because after all i have been
an educator for 25 years but then it's also entertaining and i am very pleased when i
hear somebody saying i have a question about my girlfriend i hope you will ask me a question about
yours okay uh that when they say we are using contraceptives without even waiting for me to
like to hear that yes um now let me i just want to establish for once and for all this is a live
radio program in manhattan new york city the big apple eight million people
do you get crank phone calls dirty phone calls nasty calls very interesting i do
it's called sexually speaking and it's w-y-n-y it's part of nbc and i really do not get any calls
now i do have a producer who is screening some chords but i talk very explicitly about sexual
matters and i how explicitly just let's how excited how explicitly you would you
really want how experienced for example we have some questions here maybe you can uh
show us how yeah okay yeah but i tell you i do talk very explicitly but i do
think that the reason we don't get crank calls even so 85 300 people are listening 85 300 people
is because there is really a tremendous amount of need for this kind of sexual literacy and calling
uh and talking about intercourse and talking about foreplay and about a penis and vagina
i'm being silly you know i'm being silly and i'll just we'll just get on with this i
i knew it was i knew it had to happen and i was just
but what
what i don't want to do is make this seem silly because it's not it's very and you're providing
this is the first time that people really with any kind of anonymity can call up and get this
kind of information yeah all right we have we've distributed some questionnaires to the studio
audience we'd like you to respond to these if you don't mind uh is it abnormal for a 19 year old
tell me if this is the kind of question you get is it abnormal for a 19 year old to be nervous around
older women but to be very attracted to them and this is from a 19 year old male of course of
course uh that's a fantastic question david and i tell you why what he really wants to know probably
and what i would generalize about that question is that it's perfectly all right to get erections
even at places where erections are not called for because you can't use the direction at the time
around women in general and if this particular 19 year old does feel a certain
movement in his genitalia that it's perfectly right he shouldn't worry about it okay
if you just joined us we're discussing elections
this is also a very good question how do you know when it's the right time age etc to make love to
someone a 17 year old female that's a terrific question when i get a question like this from
a young person i have a feeling that that young person really would like somebody to say hold it
wait a while don't let anybody pressure you into a sexual activity and wait for that inner voice
to tell you when it is the right time and the right time might be at the night of the wedding
with that person that you have chosen so when i see a question like this i like this kind
of relationship questions and where i can say don't get pressured into any sexual activity
that you don't feel comfortable with do you find that you get more questions dealing with
relationships or more questions dealing with uh sexual dysfunction i would say it's about um
even okay oh this is silly who is the blonde who handed out the questionnaire well um
do you know any do you know of any now i guess you get this a lot do you know of any modern day
aphrodisiacs yes the only aphrodisiac needed is right between your ears it's in your mind it is
nothing from the outside and it is not a substance to be taken it is just what you can do with your
mind in order to get good sexual functioning yeah this is uh fascinating i um this radio program do
people call up and snicker and giggle i mean that's a good question david even when i hear
snickering even when it's a question about somebody being sexually aroused by a peanut butter
i answer it very seriously because there might be somebody out there who really has a question about
fetishism and i don't mind that there is giggles because i think that sexual activity should be fun
and it should be humor and that's why i'm here talking with you on this show but i do answer
it in terms of the um findings the physiological and research findings in terms of the um sexual
knowledge that we do have yeah you're terrific and i see now why the show was a huge success
thank you very much i'll do that dr ruth westham be right there coming up singer tony clifton