With her trademark titillating humour, Dr Ruth Westheimer explores how art and verse can enhance desire. The selections, compiled by editor Charles Sullivan, couple Ginsberg with Hockney, Donne with Lichtenstein, Sappho with O'Keeffe. And as in the best relationships, each unconventional match exposes new, surprising aspects of both partners. Through chapter introductions and commentary, Dr Ruth reveals these nuances and the ways in which they can touch readers. The colour illustrations include paintings by Chagall, Magritte and Bronzino, photographs by Man Ray and Nan Goldin, and erotic sculptures and prints from ancient India and Japan. This anthology pairs a total of 60 poems and artworks.
Born in Germany in 1928, I was sent to a children's home in Switzerland at the age of ten which became an orphanage for most of the German Jewish students who had been sent there to escape the Holocaust. At 17 I went to Israel where I fought for the country's independence as a member of the Haganah, the Jewish freedom fighters. I then moved to Paris where I studied at the Sorbonne and taught kindergarten. I immigrated to the U.S. in 1956 and obtained my Masters Degree in Sociology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research. In 1970, I received a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in the Interdisciplinary Study of the Family from Columbia University Teacher's College.
My work at Planned Parenthood is what prompted me to further my education in human sexuality by studying at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center.
My TV show Sexually Speaking first aired in 1980 as a 15-minute taped show, which then increased in popularity and became a nationally syndicated radio show.
In recent years, I have made regular appearances on the PBS Television children's show Between the Lions as "Dr. Ruth Wordheimer" in a parody of my therapist role, in which I help anxious readers and spellers overcome their fear of long words.
Currently I am an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U. and an Associate Fellow of Calhoun College at Yale University, where I teach a course on the American family. I am also a Fellow of Butler College at Princeton University, where I will teach a course on the Jewish family. In addition to having my own private practice I am a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and frequently lecture at universities across the country.
