Heres my quick two cents on Dr Ruth.
Yes, she is probably 80 years old at this point, but it really doesn't matter. People have been fucking since the dawn of time.
Nothing has really changed. The parts still fit. I remember hearing her show in 1983 on local radio, because the following year I got a disc player when Van Halen released their 1984 album and I stopped listening to the radio.
So, if you care to do the math, Dr Ruth was talking her stuff thirty-forty years ago.
I think thats actually pretty cool. She was a pioneer. It took a lot of balls to talk about sex on the Johnny Carson show, and allude to unforgivable topics that were completely taboo. People couldn't go onto mainstream shows and talk about John Holmes dick, or have a legitimate conversation about Deep Throat, which only came about a few years prior.
All of that shit made producers rip their hair out. We now enjoy our televised content because of people like Dr Ruth, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lorne Michaels..
I think you hit the nail on the head, man. That's what it was. I think I first heard her show around 1982 or 1983. She fucking dared to talk about it right in the middle of Reagan's first term, when it wasn't talked about, and she did it in a respectful way that the FCC didn't hammer her for (and I'm sure they considered it.) Publicly, teenagers joked about her show, but I'm guessing most of them secretly actually
learned something. She was one of the earliest to publicly tell people to wear a condom; she didn't need any fucking government program. Most of these people here are just too young to know shit about it.
Oh...and she's a holocaust survivor, but she doesn't make it a topic or anything. Both her parents were believed exterminated by the Nazis, but she escaped. She made something of herself--something real, and important. She's a true heroine.
Thanks for posting the videos, too. I think that great interview illustrated the way things were, her valued approach to the topic, and sadly, how things still are (at least publicly, face-to-face), despite her incredible trail blazing.