Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the television sextherapist who captivated audiences with her matter of fact approach to talking about the topic, died July 12 in her home in New York City. She was 96.
Westheimer’s career began in the 1980s with her radio show “Sexually Speaking.” in 1983 she published “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” the first of 40 books she wrote. She was a regular on the late night show circuit, and her own talk show debuted in 1984.
In a 2016 interview with the Harvard Business Review, Westheimer said career path wasn’t planned from the start. She was training to become a sex therapist at Cornell University Medical Center when a law was passed in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey that required radio programs to include community affairs in their broadcasts. The school received a letter from a local station that asked if any of the students would be interested in fulfilling the role, and Westheimer said she would.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would turn into a program,
she said. “But within a week I got a request from Betty Elam at WYNY to do an interview on a Sunday morning show. I did it, and right after that she called and gave me 15 minutes of airtime just after midnight on Sundays. So I did that for one year. I built it up.”
She soon began to receive thousands of letters and spent a decade as the host of her own show at the station from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. on Sundays.
Westheimer also revealed that losing family in the Holocaust inspired her to live her life in a very specific way. “There were 1,500,000 Jewish children killed during World War II. I was spared because, by chance, I was in Switzerland, not in Holland, Belgium, or France,” she explained.
“People like me have an obligation to make a dent in society. Many of us became social workers, nurses, or counselors. I wanted to study medicine—impossible at first, because I didn’t have a high school diploma, parents, or money. So I became a kindergarten teacher, which my grandmother had once said I should do because I was so short I could fit on those little chairs.”
“I did that in Israel and Paris, and then I started to study psychology. I did not know that my eventual contribution to the world would be to talk about orgasms and erections, but I did know I had to do something for others to justify being alive,” Westheimer said.
Westheimer’s small demeanor (she was 4’7″) and accented English often drew listeners to her program, but her academic training and extensive knowledge kept them coming back each week. She was a proud advocate for LGBTQ rights in the 1980s and and outspoken defender of gay men throughout the decade’s AIDS epidemic.
She also supported abortion rights and was a proponent of monogamy. In a 2015 appearance on “The Steve Malzberg Show” she explained, “I’m an optimist. I believe that most people want to have a relationship. They don’t want to just go to bed. They don’t even want to have a one–night stand.”
In 2020, she credited her ability to offer her undivided attention as a big factor in her success. While speaking to author Howard Lovy, Westheimer explained, “I’m sitting alone. I just had coffee. And I am not doing anything but listening to you and talking to you. I think you are absolutely right. This is one of my characteristics which comes from being a therapist. Because in my office in those days, no phone calls when I talked to people.”
Karola Ruth Westheimer was born on June 4, 1928, in a German village that was then known as Wiesenfeld. She was sent to live in Switzerland at the age of 10 due to the rise of the Nazi Party at home; her parents stayed in Germany to take care of Westheimer’s grandmother. Both her parents were later killed at concentration camps.
Westheimer immigrated to Palestine at the end of World War II, where she was trained as a sniper as a member of the Haganah, the Zionist military organization that protected the Yishuv (the Jewish population in Palestine before 1948). She was injured when a bomb hit her dorm on her 20th birthday during the 1948 Palestine War, which almost resulted in the loss of both her feet.
The trauma of the bombing stayed with her throughout her life. On Oct. 9, 2023, she tweeted, “As someone who was severely wounded in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, of course I stand with Israel today. But those wounds also help me to identify with all the dead and wounded on both sides. This is a terrible tragedy which sadly won’t end soon.”
She and her first husband moved to France in 1950 and Westheimer studied psychology at the Sorbonne. She and her husband divorced in 1955 and Westheimer immigrated to the United States with the man who would become her second husband in 1956. Westheimer earned her Master’s in Sociology from the New School in 1959 and her doctorate from Columbia.
Westheimer and her second husband soon divorced, and she met Manfred Westheimer in 1961. They were married until her husband’s death in 1997.
Her television show “The Dr. Ruth Show” took off in 1985. She also wrote a naturally syndicated advice column and launched a series of calendars. Westheimer regularly appeared on several talks shows, including “The Howard Stern Radio Show,” “Nightline,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “The Dr. Oz Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman,” as a guest.
Westheimer was also the author of 40 books, including “Sex for Dummies,” “The Art of Arousal,” “Heavenly Sex: Sexuality and the Jewish Tradition,” “Doctor Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” and her autobiography “All in a Lifetime.”
In 2001 Westheimer was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Leo Baeck Medal. She also received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College-Institute of Religion for her work in human sexuality and her commitment to the Jewish people, Israel and religion.
Westheimer is survived by two children, Joel and Miriam, and four grandchildren.
