Making Love Series With Dr. Ruth Westheimer: Arousal, Foreplay & Orgasm

Want to put a little spark into your relationship? Take your husband to a strip club ("your gesture will be sure to impress your man"). Only in the "unreal" world of Playboy (executive producers for this first volume in a projected series) would you encounter such ridiculous advice. In this weird hybrid, viewers are treated to soft-core erotic sequences featuring oodles of female nudity and brief glimpses of male genitalia (if these are normal Americans engaged in normal sex, then normal American couples seem to have benefited from silicone and steroids, they live in houses that must list for well over two million, and they go watch strippers, as well as play games with chocolate desserts and handcuffs). "Serious" tips are voice-over narrated during these sequences, such as "don't worry about your body." Of course, everyone shown during the program looks as if they walked off the pages of Playboy and Playgirl: no chunky folks, no middle-aged couples, no elderly--of course--and, rather surprisingly, no people of color. Too, every time the narrator wants to make a point about men or women, he refers to a Playboy reader poll (I'm not convinced that reality gets a fair shake in a Playboy reader poll). In between the skin flick segments, Dr. Ruth Westheimer talks to a trio of couples about the subjects of arousal, foreplay, orgasm, and afterplay. Nothing earth-shattering is revealed here, and although the box clearly states that Dr. Ruth is talking to "real couples," these couples all have different first and last names during the closing credits. Finally, how seriously can you take a sexual education program that plainly shows a flaccid penis in a segment entitled "Arousal"? Not nearly as graphic as The Better Sex Video series (VL-4/93), though easily as silly, this is not in the same league as the superior sexual instruction/therapy video Falling In Love Again (VL-9/91), which does feature real people (including chubby, elderly, and of color) discussing real problems, not planning jaunts to the local strip joint. (R. Pitman)