Famous sex therapist “Dr. Ruth” dies at the age of 96 – DW – 13.07.2024

Bestselling author and sex therapist Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, died Friday at the age of 96 in her home in New York City.

According to her publicist and friend Pierre Lehu, she died surrounded by her family.

A pop culture phenomenon in 1980s America, Westheimer was loved by fans for her candid discourse on the taboo subject of sexuality and made a name for herself with her own syndicated radio and television shows.

Although most remember the petite matron as a lively little woman with a strong accent and a mischievous, infectious laugh, her life before fame was complicated and marked by tragedy.

Surviving the Holocaust and fighting for Israel’s independence

Karola Ruth Siegel was born on June 4, 1928 in Wiesenfeld (Germany) as the only child of two Orthodox Jewish parents.

At the age of ten, her father was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp following the anti-Jewish pogroms in November 1938 known as Kristallnacht. Soon after, her mother and grandmother put her on a train to Switzerland, where she found refuge in an orphanage. It was the last time she saw her family.

When the war in Europe ended, at the age of 16 she went to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, where she was trained for military operations as part of an underground Zionist group called Haganah, which fought for a state of Israel. During this time she became a sniper and was seriously injured in an explosion in her barracks.

In 1950, she moved to Paris with her first husband, an Israeli soldier. There she studied psychology at the Sorbonne, but then divorced and emigrated again, this time to the USA.

A new life and a new calling in the USA

In New York, she raised her daughter Miriam, who was the result of a brief second marriage, before she met and married her third husband in 1961. She remained married to Manfred Westheimer, himself a Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor, until his death in 1997. This marriage produced another child, a son, Joel.

Westheimer earned a doctorate in education and soon began teaching sex education to professors. Lacking sufficient knowledge of sex education herself, she enrolled in courses taught by renowned sex therapist Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan.

In 1980, she hosted a New York City call-in radio show called “Sexually Speaking.” Her frank and nonjudgmental advice on topics such as female orgasm, masturbation, consent and homosexuality was unusual for American audiences, especially during the conservative Reagan years and the age of AIDS, but it made her a surprise hit and the show was eventually syndicated — and sold to several stations at the same time.

Using national fame to entertain, advocate and educate

The humorous image of a petite Jewish lady giving blunt sexual advice aroused widespread fascination among talk show viewers and readers of popular magazines.

Westheimer eventually wrote 40 books and for decades wrote regular advice columns to help people have more fulfilling sex lives, always hammering home the idea that human sexuality is nothing to be ashamed of.

She said that despite her own old-fashionedness, it was important for people to talk about sex to demystify it and educate themselves – something that had become increasingly important with the advent of the AIDS epidemic.

Westheimer, who believed in monogamy, was a tireless advocate for condom use, abortion rights and gay rights. She said her own past experiences led her to speak out on behalf of people labeled “subhuman” by far-right Christians in the United States.

Westheimer, who has received numerous awards and been the subject of several documentaries and even a one-woman play, often spoke of her gratitude for surviving the Holocaust and said she felt it was her duty to give back to the world.

Speaking to the Harvard Business Review in 2016, she said, “I didn’t know that my ultimate contribution to the world would be to talk about orgasms and erections, but I knew I had to do something for others to justify my life.”

Dr. Ruth Westerheimer leaves behind two children and four grandchildren.

js/dj (AFP, AP)