Dr. Ruth Westheimer, America’s Small, Groundbreaking Sex Therapist, Dies at 96 | US

NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author for her candid conversations about once-taboo bedroom topics, has died. She was 96.

Westheimer died Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, according to publicist and friend Pierre Lehu.

Westheimer never advocated risky sexual behavior. Instead, she encouraged open dialogue about previously hidden issues that affected her audience of millions. Her recurring theme was that there was nothing to be ashamed of.

“I still hold to old-fashioned values ​​and I’m a little bit of a wimp,” she told students at Michigan City High School in 2002. “Sex is a private art and a private matter. But it’s still a topic we need to talk about.”

Westheimer’s giggly, German-accented voice, combined with her 4-foot-10 frame, made her an unlikely-looking — and sounding — outlet for “sexual literacy.” The contradiction was one of the keys to her success.

But it was her extensive knowledge and training, combined with her humorous, nonjudgmental manner, that propelled her local radio program, “Sexually Speaking,” into the national spotlight in the early 1980s. She took an open approach to what two consenting adults were doing in the privacy of their home.

“Tell him you’re not going to initiate it,” she told a concerned caller in June 1982. “Tell him Dr. Westheimer said you won’t die if he doesn’t have sex for a week.”

Her radio success opened new doors, and in 1983 she wrote the first of more than 40 books, “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” in which she demystified sex with both rationality and humor. There was even a board game, Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex.

She quickly became a regular on the late-night talk show circuit, bringing her personality to the national stage. Her rise coincided with the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when frank sexual conversations became a necessity.

“If we could talk about sexual activity the way we talk about diet — the way we talk about food — without it having the connotation that something is wrong, we’d be a step ahead. But we’ve got to do it in good taste,” she told Johnny Carson in 1982.

She normalized the use of words like “penis” and “vagina” on radio and TV, aided by her grandmotherly Jewish accent, which The Wall Street Journal once called “a cross between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse.” People magazine named her one of “The Most Intriguing People of the Century.” She even turned it into a Shania Twain song: “No, I don’t need proof to show me the truth/Not even Dr. Ruth is gonna tell me how I feel.”

Westheimer defended abortion rights, suggested that older people have sex after a good night’s sleep, and was an outspoken advocate of condom use. She believed in monogamy.

In the 1980s, she stood up for gay men at the height of the AIDS epidemic and was a vocal advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, saying she was defending people who some far-right Christians considered “subhuman” because of her own past.

She was born Karola Ruth Siegel in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1928, an only child. At age 10, her parents sent her to Switzerland to escape Kristallnacht—the 1938 Nazi pogrom that served as a precursor to the Holocaust. She never saw her parents again; Westheimer believed they had been murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

At the age of 16, she moved to Palestine and joined the Haganah, the underground movement for Israeli independence. She was trained as a sniper, although she said she never shot anyone.

Her legs were badly injured when a bomb exploded in her dormitory, killing many of her friends. She said it was only through the work of a “superb” surgeon that she was able to walk and ski again.

In 1961, after a second divorce, she finally met her life partner: Manfred Westheimer, a fellow refugee from Nazi Germany. The couple married and had a son, Joel. They remained married for 36 years until Fred, as she called him, died of heart failure in 1997.

In 1984, her radio program was syndicated nationally. A year later, she debuted her own television program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” which won an Ace Award for excellence in cable television.

She also wrote a nationally syndicated advice column and later appeared in a series of videos produced by Playboy, in which she preached the virtues of open sexual discussion and good sex. She even had a line of calendars.

Her rise was notable for the culture of the time, when President Ronald Reagan’s administration was hostile to Planned Parenthood and aligned with conservative voices.

Phyllis Schlafly, a staunch anti-feminist, wrote in a 1999 article titled “The Dangers of Sex Education” that Westheimer, as well as Gloria Steinem, Anita Hill, Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres and others, promoted “provocative sex talk” and “rampant immorality.”

Westheimer’s books include “Sex for Dummies” and her autobiographical works “All in a Lifetime” (1987) and “Musically Speaking: A Life Through Song” (2003). The documentary “Ask Dr. Ruth” aired in 2019, and a new book, “The Joy of Connections,” will be released in October.

He is survived by two children, Joel and Miriam, and four grandchildren.