Dr Ruth Westheimer: Sex therapist has died aged 96

13 July 2024, 15:53 | Updated: 13 July 2024, 20:26

Dr Ruth Westheimer, who was one of the most famous sex therapists in the United States, has died at the age of 96.

The media star and best-selling author died on Friday at her New York City home, surrounded by her family, according to her publicist and friend Pierre Lehu.

As a 50-something psychiatrist, Westheimer found fame on radio, television and in bookstores during the 1980s by talking honestly in public about once-taboo, bedroom topics.

The 4ft 7in tall celebrity, with a distinctive German accent who backed contraception, encouraged an open dialogue on previously closeted issues which affected her audience of millions.

Westheimer, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, had a non-judgmental approach to what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their home and her one recurring theme was there was nothing to be ashamed of.

It was her extensive knowledge, coupled with her humorous manner, that catapulted her local radio show, Sexually Speaking, into the national spotlight in the early 1980s.

"Tell him you're not going to initiate," she told a concerned caller in 1982.

"Tell him that Dr Westheimer said that you're not going to die if he doesn't have sex for one week."

Her radio success opened new doors, and in 1983 she wrote the first of more than 40 books: Dr Ruth's Guide to Good Sex, demystifying sex with both rationality and humour. There was even a board game, Dr Ruth's Game of Good Sex.

Also in the 1980s, she stood up for gay men at the height of the AIDS epidemic and spoke out for the LGBT+ community.

Holocaust orphan

Westheimer was the result of an unplanned, out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

Born Karola Ruth Siegel on 4 June 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany, she was an only child in a wealthy Orthodox Jewish family.

Her father Julius was a successful businessman who married her mother Irma, a housekeeper for the family, after she became pregnant.

Westheimer was 10 when the Nazis came to her home and took away her father.

Six weeks later, her mother sent her to an orphanage in Switzerland.

In 1941, Westheimer stopped receiving letters from her parents and she later learned they had been murdered in the Holocaust.

Read more from Sky News:
Man arrested after human remains found in suitcases
Strictly star leaves show amid reports of alleged misconduct
Krejcikova crowned Wimbledon women's singles champion

Bomb blast

On her 20th birthday, Siegel was severely injured in a bomb blast in Jerusalem that left her feet severely damaged and in danger of amputation. She defied the odds and made a full recovery.

She married an Israeli soldier and they moved to Paris and went to college. They later divorced, and she headed to New York with a boyfriend, married him, had a daughter and continued her education.

After another divorce, she wed Manfred Westheimer, an engineer she met in 1961. That marriage produced a son and lasted until Manfred's death in 1997.

After earning a doctorate in education, Westheimer went to work for Planned Parenthood and caught the attention of a New York radio station executive when she lectured broadcast officials on contraception.

That led to a weekly 15-minute midnight radio programme in 1980 called Sexually Speaking.

Westheimer is survived by her children, Miriam and Joel, and four grandchildren.

(c) Sky News 2024: Dr Ruth Westheimer: Sex therapist has died aged 96