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In her heyday, pioneering sex therapist Ruth Westheimer was so well-known and trusted that when she got into a New York cab, drivers would immediately pepper her with intimate questions “as a friend.”
“Dr. Ruth,” who has died aged 96, revolutionized the way Americans think about and talk about sex. Her phone-in shows, dozens of books, and frequent appearances on late-night television helped normalize the public’s use of words like condom, penis, and vagina. Her rise to prominence in the 1980s also served as an important antidote to the anti-gay and anti-sex rhetoric generated by the AIDS epidemic and the rise of evangelical conservatives.
A middle-aged woman just 4ft 7in tall, with a pronounced German accent and a tendency to giggle, she was unintimidating and easy to parody, but that made her particularly effective at conveying her message that intimate relationships between consenting adults should be fun and non-judgmental, and that safe sex should be planned.
“There’s no such thing as normal,” she told listeners who worried about the appearance of her private parts or her abnormal sexual arousal. She attributes her ability to connect with her audience to her very ordinary looks, saying in a 2019 documentary, “I think it has to do with the fact that I’m not tall, blonde, and gorgeous.”
Born Carola Ruth Siegel in Germany in 1928, she had already experienced tragedy and adventure by the time she hit the radio: the only daughter of an Orthodox Jewish clothier and his wife, who settled in Frankfurt when she was one year old, she was smuggled to Switzerland after the Nazis took her father and sent him to a labor camp, never to see her family again.
After World War II, she emigrated to Israel and trained as a sniper with the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah. “I’ve never killed anyone, but I know how to throw a grenade and shoot,” she told USA Today. After being severely wounded in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, she moved to Paris and studied psychology at the Sorbonne. She came to the United States in 1956 and worked as a maid to pay for her graduate studies in sociology. She also earned a doctorate in education from Columbia University.
Two failed marriages helped shape her worldview, as did her lengthy third marriage to fellow German-Jewish immigrant Manfred Westheimer. Long after Westheimer’s death in 1997, she told Esquire magazine in an interview, recalling their first meeting while skiing in the Catskill Mountains: “Skiers make the best lovers, because… they take risks and they shake their asses.”
She ran a sex therapy clinic while also teaching sex education to others. Then, in 1980, a New York radio producer offered her $25 a week for a 15-minute program called ” Sexually speakingThe show proved so popular that it was expanded to a full hour and drew top ratings in the United States’ largest markets.
“She embodied vitality, levity and joy, and her bold message resonated deeply with me,” best-selling psychotherapist Esther Perel wrote in a post on X after Dr. Ruth’s passing was announced. “She spoke to millions and challenged society’s status quo.”
Dr. Ruth’s straightforward manner and catchphrases like “Get some” and “Life’s too short to have bad sex” captivated listeners, and she became a ubiquitous presence with national radio broadcasts, a television show, books and a syndicated advice column.
A mother of two who rose to fame in middle age and continued to be active well into old age, Dr. Ruth championed a historically marginalized demographic group, arguing that women not only had the right to pursue their own pleasure, but also the right to fight back if they felt unfairly pressured to have sex.
“One of her achievements is sexual empowerment. She also normalized sexual diversity,” said John Doe, a Kinsey Institute researcher and author of ” Tell us what you want.
The message was not popular with everyone: Conservative critics, including activist Phyllis Schlafly and Catholic prelate Edwin O’Brien, accused Dr. Luce of promoting hedonism and immorality.
But her lasting influence is undeniable: New York Governor Kathy Hockle appointed her last year to tackle the epidemic of loneliness among older adults, and the Library of Congress recently acquired her papers, including thousands of letters from listeners and viewers pleading for help.
Comedian Adam Sandler spoke for many fans when he posted to X after Ruth’s death, “We loved Dr. Ruth…she always made us smile.”
