Dear Dr. Ruth,

I want what you have. I want to get paid for talking incessantly about sex.  I thought I was on the right track. I thought I was making progress with all of the candid doggy style banter and 14-years of therapy and making people squirm and avert their eyes in discomfort as I share about unwanted body hair in pubic (Ed Note: I think this is meant to be “public” but HAHAHHA pubic I love puns okay bye), but now I learn that you are a trained Israeli Sniper and I feel utterly hopeless and unqualified for life. How can an LA-born half-Jew of privilege compete with that? I barely graduated college. In fact, I might actually be a tiny half a credit short from being an official college grad. But don’t tell anyone, please. That would break the whole Doctor/Patient confidentiality agreement thing anyways. And I trust you. We all do.

Photo by Douglas Friedman via Garage Magazine

 I remember when I first started developing breasts. I remember this because I was absolutely terrified the first time I felt those hard lumps in my chest. I ran to my mother in horror, sure that I was dying from a new mutated strain of something awful, who in exchange bought me one of your books (I think it was one of your books at least and if it wasn’t I wish it had been). I don’t remember exactly what the book said verbatim, but I’m certain that it offered mental sanctuary and assured me that those mounds of flesh were not cancerous, that they were in fact just my budding bosoms. Just tiny new beginnings–the start of a whole new world of drama and trauma and confusion and body dysmorphic disorder and agony.

I needed you back then and now I need you again. I still have so many unanswered questions. (For example, what’s the worst thing that can happen if beer accidentally gets in your vagina?). I have so many things I want to tell you, like how I cried the other day after I let my boyfriend give me a facial (not the spa kind) and then he didn’t want to kiss me because there was you-know-what allover my face and then I started crying while still on my knees on the floor of the living room. It was REALLY embarrassing because I’m usually a lot tougher than that, and obviously I was going to wash my face first and wouldn’t expect him to want to put his mouth on that gunk, but I was PMSing and just felt really vulnerable in that moment and plus he was being kind of insensitive about the whole thing even though he was just joking around and it’s not really his fault that my hormones decided they didn’t want me to have a sense of humor that day. You know, stuff like that.

 Anyway, Ruth, you’d be like my awesome grandma/friend who wouldn’t tell my parents when you walked in on me ditching school and having sex with my black boyfriend in my parents’ bedroom. Okay so I guess mostly I want your career, but a tiny part of me just wants to be friends with your adorable little squishy face, not only because you’ve managed to bridge sex education with pop culture relevancy (getting interviewed for Garage Magazine by Derek Blasberg is incredibly rock star of you), but also because you’ve been through some crazy shit and I’m sure you have tons of badass stories that we could girl talk about when I wasn’t forcing you to psychoanalyze my gay male sex fantasies.

So, just think about it. I could be your protege, although you do kind of strike me as more of a solo mission type and I really doubt you need or want a wing woman this late in life. I’d offer to do your social media, but let’s face the truth: you’re 83-years-old, you know how how to handle a gun, and I’m fairly certain you don’t give a shit about Pinterest.  Anyhow, promise me you’ll think about it…

 

With Great Respect and Admiration,

Jane