Enlightener of the nation Legendary sex therapist Ruth Westheimer is dead
Westheimer died at the age of 96.
Image: Miles Mortensen/Invision/AP
The sex therapist Ruth Westmeimer has died.
Image: dpa
Ruth Westheimer fled from the Nazis to Switzerland at the age of ten.
Image: Arne Dedert/dpa
Westheimer died at the age of 96.
Image: Miles Mortensen/Invision/AP
The sex therapist Ruth Westmeimer has died.
Image: dpa
Ruth Westheimer fled from the Nazis to Switzerland at the age of ten.
Image: Arne Dedert/dpa
The diminutive German-American Ruth Westheimer changed the way intimate matters were discussed in the US media. Now the pioneer of sex education has died.
13.07.2024, 18:01
dpa
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- The world-famous sex therapist Ruth Westheimer is dead.
- The US-American died on Friday evening (local time) at the age of 96.
- Born in Frankfurt, she was sent to Switzerland by her parents at the age of 10 to escape Kristallnacht.
The famous German-American sex therapist Ruth Westheimer is dead. She died on Friday at her home in New York City surrounded by her family, her manager and friend Pierre Lehu announced. Westheimer was 96 years old. In the USA, the therapist, who grew up in Frankfurt am Main, was considered a pioneer of sex education whose programs achieved cult status.
Her entertaining and amusing radio program "Sexually Speaking" caused a sensation in the United States in the early 1980s. The psychologist and sociologist with a height of 1.40 meters candidly gave tips on sex and passion without passing judgement on callers.
"Tell him that you won't make the first move," she advised a worried caller in June 1982, for example. "Tell him that Dr. Westheimer has said that he won't die if he doesn't have sex for a week."
Blunt approach to the topic of sex
The success of her radio show opened new doors for Westheimer, and in 1983 she wrote her first of more than 40 books: "Dr. Ruth's Guide to Good Sex". In this work, she explained sexuality with a mixture of humor and sobriety.
The fact that the words "penis" and "vagina" could be heard on radio and television in the USA without a beep was thanks to Westheimer, who retained her Hessian dialect-tinged English to the end. The sex therapist was a frequent guest on latenight talk shows, which further boosted her nationwide fame. "If we could get ourselves to talk about sexual activity the way we talk about nutrition, the way we talk about food, without the connotation that there's something wrong with it, then we'd be one step closer. But we have to do it with good taste," she said on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1982.
Advocate of monogamy
Westheimer defended the right to abortion and campaigned strongly for the use of condoms, but was also an advocate of monogamy. In the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, she stood up for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals. She had to defend people who some right-wing Christians regarded as "subhuman" because of their own past, she said.
She was born Ruth Karola Siegel in 1928 to Jewish parents. At the age of ten, her parents sent her to Switzerland to protect her from the pogroms organized in Nazi Germany in November 1938. She was never to see her parents again. Westheimer assumed that they were murdered in Auschwitz. At the age of 16, she moved to Palestine, where she joined the Zionist underground organization Hagana. There she was trained as a sniper, but according to her own statements, she did not shoot anyone at the time.
She suffered serious injuries to her legs in a bomb explosion and many of her friends were killed. She later went to Paris, where she studied at the prestigious Sorbonne. In the mid-1950s, she moved to the USA, where she settled in New York City. Westheimer was married three times.