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In her heyday, pioneering sex therapist Ruth Westheimer was so recognizable and so trusted that when she got into a New York cab, the driver immediately bombarded her with intimate questions “for a friend.”
“Dr. Ruth,” who has died aged 96, revolutionised the way Americans thought and talked about sex. Her phone-in talk shows, dozens of books and frequent appearances on late-night television helped normalise the public use of words like condom, penis and vagina. Her rising prominence in the 1980s also served as an important counterpoint to the anti-gay and anti-sex rhetoric that had been sparked by the AIDS epidemic and the growing power of evangelical conservatives.
A middle-aged woman barely five feet tall, with a thick German accent and a tendency to giggle, she was unthreatening and easy to parody. But that helped her be particularly effective in getting across her message that intimacy between consenting adults should be fun, nonjudgmental and involve safe sex planning.
“There is no such thing as normal,” she would tell listeners who were concerned about the appearance of their private parts or unusual sexual arousals. She attributed her ability to connect with her audience to her very ordinary appearance, saying in a 2019 documentary: “I think it has to do with the fact that I’m not tall, blonde and beautiful.”
Born Karola Ruth Siegel in Germany in 1928, she had already experienced tragedy and adventure by the time she appeared on the airwaves. The only child of an Orthodox Jewish haberdasher and his wife who settled in Frankfurt when she was one, she was smuggled into Switzerland after her father was taken by the Nazis and put in a labour camp. She never saw her immediate family again.
After World War II, she moved to Israel and trained as a sniper in the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization. “I never killed anyone, but I know how to throw hand grenades and shoot,” she told USA Today. Seriously wounded in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, she moved to Paris to study psychology at the Sorbonne. She left for the U.S. in 1956, working as a housemaid to help fund graduate studies in sociology. She also earned a doctorate in education from Columbia.
Two failed marriages helped shape her worldview, as did her third, long-term union with Manfred Westheimer, another German-Jewish immigrant. Long after his death in 1997, she paid tribute in an interview with Esquire to their first meeting while skiing in the Catskills, saying, “Skiers make the best lovers because… they take risks and get off their butts.”
At first, she taught others sex education while running a sex therapy practice. Then, in 1980, a New York radio producer offered her $25 a week to do a 15-minute spot called Sexually speakingIt proved wildly popular, was expanded to an hour, and became the highest-rated show in America’s largest market.
“She embodied vitality, vitality, pleasure and joy. That bold message resonated deeply with me,” wrote Esther Perel, the best-selling psychotherapist, in an X post after Dr. Ruth’s death was announced. “She spoke to millions of people, challenging the social status quo.”
Dr. Ruth’s straightforward language and catchy phrases, such as “Get someone” and “Life’s too short to have bad sex,” captivated listeners. She became ubiquitous: Her radio show went national, she landed a television show, and she wrote books and an advice column.
As a mother of two who rose to prominence in middle age and remained relevant into old age, Dr. Ruth championed a demographic that had historically been marginalized. She insisted that women had the right not only to pursue their own pleasure, but also to object if they felt they were being unfairly pressured into sex.
“One of her legacies is sexual empowerment… She also normalized sexual diversity,” said Justin Lehmiller, a Kinsey Institute researcher and author of tell me what you want.
That message was not universally popular. Conservative critics, including activist Phyllis Schlafly and Catholic prelate Edwin O’Brien, complained that Dr. Ruth was promoting hedonism and immorality.
But her lasting influence was undeniable. New York Governor Kathy Hochul tapped her last year to help tackle the problem of widespread loneliness among the elderly, and the US Library of Congress recently acquired her papers, including thousands of letters sent by ordinary listeners and viewers asking for help.
Comedian Adam Sandler spoke for many of his fans when he posted on X after her death that he “loved Dr. Ruth… She always made us smile.”
