Dr. Ruth Westheimer dies at the age of 96

Dr. Ruth Westheimer has died at the age of 96. Westheimer became famous as a sex therapist who encouraged the public to break taboos and talk openly about sex.

“She was peaceful when she died. Her son and daughter were with her and held her hand at that moment. It was as peaceful as she could be. She was 96,” Pierre Lehu, who co-wrote books with Westheimer, told People Magazine.

“It’s incredible, things were still happening in her life (her book with Allison Gilbert is coming out in the fall) and someone wants to make a biopic about her,” he continued.

Although Westheimer never advocated risky sexual practices, her presence encouraged an open dialogue on the subject. She advocated the use of condoms.

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

Your local radio program, Sexually speakingrose to national prominence in the early 1980s when she offered her guests and her show a non-judgmental, sometimes humorous approach. Throughout her career, she frequently appeared on The Howard Stern Radio Show, NightlineTThe Tonight Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Dr. Oz ShowAnd Late Night with David Letterman.

During the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, she acted as an ally of the gay community, which was then in the spotlight, and defended the right to abortion.

Dr. Westheimer was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany. She survived the Holocaust in a Swiss orphanage, where her parents sent her before they were deported to concentration camps and murdered.

After the war, she went to Palestine, where she joined the paramilitary group Haganah, which fought for a Jewish state that later became Israel.

“I felt that because I was not killed by the Nazis – because I survived – I had an obligation to make a contribution to the world,” Dr. Westheimer said.

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In June 2023, in conversation with People Magazine About what surprised her most in life, she said, her fame and her family.

“That I have become famous,” she said on the occasion of her 95th birthday. “That I have a wonderful daughter, a son-in-law, a wonderful son and a wonderful daughter-in-law and four wonderful grandchildren.”