About Dr. Ruth
Dr. Ruth Westheimer is a psychosexual therapist who helped to pioneer the field of media psychology with her radio program, Sexually Speaking. It began in September of 1980 as a fifteen minute, taped show that aired Sundays after midnight on WYNY-FM (NBC) in New York. One year later it became a live, one-hour show airing at 10 PM on which Dr. Ruth, as she became known, answered call-in questions from listeners. Soon it became part of a communications network to distribute Dr. Westheimer's expertise which has included television, books, newspapers, games, home video, computer software and her own website, www.drruth.com.

Born in Germany in 1928, Dr. Westheimer 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 she went to Israel where she fought for that country's independence as a member of the Haganah, the Jewish freedom fighters. She then moved to Paris where she studied at the Sorbonne and taught kindergarten. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1956 where she obtained her Masters Degree in Sociology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research. In 1970, she received a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) in the Interdisciplinary Study of the Family from Columbia University Teacher's College.
She worked for Planned Parenthood for a time and it was that experience that prompted her to further her education in human sexuality by studying under Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center. She later participated in the program for five years as an Adjunct Associate Professor. She has also taught at Lehman College, Brooklyn College, Adelphi University, Columbia University and West Point.

Currently Dr. Westheimer is an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U. and an Associate Fellow of Calhoun College at Yale University, where she teaches a course on the Jewish family, and a Fellow of Butler College at Princeton University, where she teaches a similar course.  She is a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and in addition to having her own private practice, she frequently lectures at universities across the country and has twice been named "College Lecturer of the Year."






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How can I prevent vaginal dryness?

        What at do you do about vaginal dryness...50 years old...menopause....nothing works....and want to still be very sexually active with my husband....it hurts!!!!!!!!!

       Vaginal dryness at your age is not unexpected as it’s a part of menopause, or peri-menopause if you’re still having periods. When you say “nothing works” have you tried artificial lubricants? They should work fine. Hormone Replacement Therapy might help you resume your natural lubrication, but there are risks associated with that for of treatment. On the other hand there are methods of replacing the hormones only to your vagina, so that you will resume lubricating but could still get hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause. The hormonal dosage is much smaller, and so therefore so are the risks. Talk to your gynecologist about that. But you don’t need a prescription for artificial lubricants, and they have no risks, so my advice is to try using one of those first.

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