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entrepreneur, author and former sex talk-show host SARI LOCKER tells RON LIEBER how she's capitalized on becoming the dr. ruth of under30 year olds.
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Sari locker spent most of her childhood thinking about sex. sort of. "i had a
passion for breeding hamsters," she said. "it was such a beautiful thing to see
these ugly bald pink babies come out of the mother. it was just exquisite."
sari entered cornell at age 16 with the intention of learning more about animals, but a course on the psychology of adolescence spurred the epiphany that humans might be more interesting. "even though i wasn't sexually active in high school, i had always been an informal sex educator for my friends, since they knew that i knew a lot about it. my mother and i had always talked openly about it, and i was an avid reader when i was younger - everything from judy blume's wifey to the joy of sex. "i had been breeding animals all these years, and suddenly i thought, wait a minute, i've been thinking and learning about sex all along. teaching other people about it was what i was meant to do all along," she recalled. |
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sari spent the next summer in the stacks of the cornell library learning more
about sex. now stop snickering. she was reading. "i figured all of that academic
research had to come from somewhere, so i called up the society for the
scientific study of sex, which published one of the journals i had been reading.
i just said `what are you, and what do you do?' the people there told me that
they had an annual convention, so i decided to go." it was there that sari met
her first sexologists, people who would soon become colleagues. "i could tell
they were wondering why this kid was coming to sit down with them. then i would
recognize their names and cite their research, and they would realize that i knew
what i was talking about," she said.
back at cornell, sari figured it was time to get her head out of the books. "studying in college just wasn't enough. i developed an outline for a one-day course on sexual decision making, and i told the two high schools i attended that i would come teach it. once i had references from that experience, i offered to do it in high schools all over new york state." figuring that people might have trouble taking a sex educator who wasn't old enough to drink yet seriously, sari stopped off for a masters degree at the university of pennsylvania. then, she looked to her colleagues, like dr. ruth for instance, who had started as guests on talk shows, written books, and eventually hosted their own show. sari chose to simply mimic their career paths. |
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"there were a few other people doing this at the time, but no one who was 22, and
no one with a masters degree," she said. first, the talk show circuit. "i was
fairly studied about it. i made notecards with the names of the show and the
executive producer. i studied how other guests talked about sex, how the hosts
responded, and how much time the guests had. i did this for every show - geraldo,
donahue, montel, sally, you name it. "then i started sending out cover letters to
each of the shows' producers. i included articles that had been written about me
and my workshops, a picture, and a list of bullet points on things i could talk
about, which at the time, i thought, was everything in the world.
and one by one, they just started calling," she said. geraldo was first. "i asked if i could do a condom demonstration, figuring i needed to do something to grab people's attention, even more than the fact that i was some 22 year old presenting myself as a sex expert. so i showed how to put the condom on the banana, but there was so much going on, so much to see and so many cameras. i felt like i wasn't really in control, that i still had a lot more to learn about how to do television," she said. with a routine like that, sari was soon making regular appearances on several shows. |
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at the time, she was living on long island. she had printed a three-fold brochure
on her sex education programs that she sent to colleges all over the country, and
each program she conducted earned her between $500 and $1000. she made slightly
less for her television appearances, so all in all, it was just enough to make
ends meet. "i hadn't hit the point where i was really making it yet. i quickly
learned the importance of socializing to make connections," she said.
her biggest break came at a party she wasn't even invited to. "montel williams was having a birthday party. i wasn't really invited, but i got all dressed up anyway figuring it would be a really good place to meet people. i'd been on his show a couple of times, and they always had the option of not letting me into the party. "when i got there, i knew the person in front of me, so when they asked him for his name, i just walked right in like i was with him, and that was that. i approached the producer for geraldo and told him about what i had been doing in television, that i still wanted to do my own show and that i was writing a book about sex and generation x. i told him that i had already been rejected by one big agency, but that it had always been my dream to be represented by william morris. he told me he would call me the next day. "well he did, and he gave me the number of the head television agent there, who took my call and set me up with someone else. i sent them all my stuff - stories that had been written about me, tapes of my radio show, tapes of my best television appearances, and my book proposal. i went in for an appointment, and they said that it was a six figure book proposal. they signed me up that day for a television, lecture, and book agent," she said. |
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as sari's agents predicted, the book was an easy sell. several big publishing
companies bid for it, and harper collins won the auction with a bid that was
indeed six digits. sari immediately began work on "mindblowing sex in the real
world: hot tips for doing it in the age of anxiety," which was released in the
summer of 1995. sari's television show was tougher to pitch, and she started to
get antsy. "i would get lectures from my agents occasionally about being patient,
that i should just let things unfold on their own over time and enjoy life. and i
said, `wait a minute! i would not be where i am today if that's the attitude i
had had.'"
sari continued her now frequent talk show appearances, and eventually, the networks and syndicators started nibbling. "mtv was interested, but they never let their stars grow up. tabitha soren will always be generation x, that's the lesson to be learned from the fact that she didn't stick on the today show. one of the big four networks was interested too, but i worried that the show would be in development for a year or two and then might never see the light of day. "all along lifetime really wanted me. they ultimately came in with the best financial offer, and they reach 66 million homes, so as far as giving out good sex education to a lot of people, i could do it," she said. the half hour long "late date with sari" was born in late 1995, with sari interviewing a roundtable of men or women about all things sexual five nights a week. |
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so is sari locker the new dr. ruth? sari doesn't mind the comparison, but she
claims they're not competitors. just try telling that to dr. ruth. "last time i
approached her to say hello, she just pretended to be looking for something in
her purse."
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