Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star, and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, has died. She was 96.
Westheimer died on Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, according to publicist and friend Pierre Lehu.
Throughout her life, she led by example, helping others to envision and build fulfilling lives in spite of unimaginable hardship. Even in her final years, she championed the pursuit of sexual pleasure.
She burst into popular culture in the 1980s, first with her New York City radio show “Sexually Speaking” and later, her talk show “Good Sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer.”
At a time when discussing sexual health in mainstream media was considered taboo, Westheimer, a diminutive but unreserved woman, became known for her candid sex talks that provided an education to Americans nationwide. She spoke with compassion about condom use during the AIDS crisis, and created space for people of all genders and sexuality. Fans affectionately took to calling her “Dr. Ruth,” a mononym that stuck.
Westheimer never advocated risky sexual behavior. Instead, she encouraged an open dialogue on previously closeted issues that affected her audience of millions. Her one recurring theme was there was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I still hold old-fashioned values and I’m 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 still, it is a subject we must talk about.”
Westheimer’s giggly, German-accented voice, coupled with her 4-foot-7 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, coupled with her humorous, nonjudgmental manner, that catapulted her local radio program, “Sexually Speaking,” into the national spotlight in the early 1980s. She had an open approach to what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their home.
At the age of 10, in the wake of the November 1938 anti-Jewish pogroms previously known as Kristallnacht, her father was apprehended by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp. Soon thereafter, her mother and grandmother set her on a train bound for Switzerland, where she was given refuge in an orphanage. It was the last time she would see any of her family.
When the war in Europe ended, she left for what was then British-mandated Palestine at the age of 16, where she trained for military action as part of an underground Zionist group known as the Haganah, which was fighting for Israeli statehood. She became a sniper during that time and was severely wounded in an explosion at her barracks.
In 1950, she and her first husband, an Israeli soldier, moved to Paris. There she studied psychology at the Sorbonne before divorcing and emigrating again, this time to the US.
Fearful of the rising threat posed by the Nazis, Westheimer’s mother and grandmother sent the 10-year-old to Switzerland on a kindertransport — a children’s transport. It was the name given to the rescue mission believed to have saved some 10,000 Jewish children throughout World War II.
Westheimer never saw any of her family again. She later learned that her parents were sent to the Lodz Ghetto and likely killed at Auschwitz.
At 17, the orphan relocated to Palestine and became a member of the underground Jewish military organization. She acted as a lookout and was trained as a sniper. Westheimer insists she never shot at anyone, but the legend surrounding this story has grown through the years, and Snopes.com devoted a page to it.
In 1949, Westheimer began teaching Yemeni children. She also met David, an Israeli soldier. They married the following year and moved to Paris. Here, Westheimer studied psychology at the Sorbonne and taught kindergarten. The couple divorced in 1955.
In 1956, with restitution money received from West Germany, Westheimer and a new boyfriend, Dan, left for New York. Able to secure a scholarship to study at The New School, she settled in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan.
In 1957, Westheimer became pregnant with her daughter, Miriam, and she and Dan married. They divorced the following year. She raised her baby alone until 1961, when, during a skiing trip in the Catskills, she met Manfred (Fred) Westheimer. She knew immediately they would marry, and at the end of that year, they did exactly that. They were together until Fred’s death in 1997. Fred adopted Miriam. Son Joel joined the family in 1964.
Read More About Dr. Ruth Westheimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Westheimer
