Ruth Westheimer, who has died aged 96, was an American psychosexual therapist famed for remodeling attitudes in direction of the open dialogue of intercourse. She started quietly in 1980 with a 15-minute recorded programme, Sexually Talking, aired after midnight on a New York radio channel. A yr later it had grow to be an hour-long stay phone-in present.
Following emphatic success she went on to put in writing greater than 35 books, together with Dr Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Intercourse (1994) and Intercourse for Dummies (1995). She additionally syndicated her column in newspapers worldwide, and developed video games, movies, software program and her personal web site.
Her boundless enthusiasm, her frankness, her German accent and her peak – she was 4ft 7in – made her immediately recognisable and endlessly parodied, however by no means forgotten. Few in her area can declare to have been featured in a primetime science-fiction TV sequence (Quantum Leap, 1985), to have appeared below the skinny disguise of Dr Ruth Weisenheimer in a Batman story (The Darkish Knight Returns, 1986) and to have sung with an award-winning musician (Tom Chapin, on his album This Fairly Planet, 1996). Nor, having educated as a sniper in Israel.
She was born in Frankfurt, Germany, to orthodox Jewish dad and mom, Julius Siegel, a haberdashery wholesaler, and Irma (nee Hanauer). An solely little one, Ruth had a cheerful childhood. Julius took her commonly to the synagogue. She was later to insist, in opposition to conservative and spiritual voices that sought to criticise her openness, that intercourse was not solely good however heavenly; and that her message of liberal pondering in direction of intercourse had its origin in her faith.
When she was 10, her father was taken by the Nazis and in 1939 her mom and grandmother despatched Ruth for security to a youngsters’s dwelling in Switzerland. Letters stopped arriving in 1941 and the house grew to become an orphanage, as her household and the households of fellow college students disappeared into the focus camps. Ruth by no means noticed her dad and mom once more and believed that they perished in Auschwitz.
On the age of 17 she emigrated to what was then Palestine and joined the Jewish underground, the Haganah, to struggle for Israeli independence. She was educated as a sniper and a scout however in 1948, three weeks after Israel declared independence, and on her birthday, she was significantly wounded by an exploding shell. After a protracted convalescence, in 1950 she moved to Paris together with her first husband, David, an Israeli, studied psychology on the Sorbonne and taught at kindergarten stage.
She divorced in 1955 and the next yr travelled with a French boyfriend, Dan, to New York, the place she gained a grasp’s diploma in sociology from the New Faculty for Social Analysis. She and Dan married and had a daughter, Miriam, however quickly divorced.
In 1961, she met a fellow Jewish immigrant, Manfred Westheimer, often known as Fred, whereas on a snowboarding journey. She married him 9 months later and have become an American citizen shortly afterwards. In 1964 their son, Joel, was born.
Within the late Sixties, Westheimer joined the Deliberate Parenthood organisation in Harlem, New York and, despite her preliminary shock on the frank dialog she encountered, quickly discovered her vocation. She grew to become challenge director in 1967. She gained a doctorate in 1970 via night courses at Lecturers Faculty, Columbia College. Her work with Deliberate Parenthood prompted her to check with the pioneer intercourse therapist Helen Singer Kaplan.
Within the early 70s, she grew to become an affiliate professor of intercourse counselling at Lehman Faculty within the Bronx. She taught at Brooklyn Faculty, Adelphi College, Columbia College, West Level, New York College, Calhoun Faculty at Yale College and Princeton College, and was a fellow of the New York Academy of Drugs.
Her life and profession took a dramatic flip when she gave a lecture to New York broadcasters in regards to the want for intercourse schooling programming. Betty Elam, of the New York radio station WYNY-FM, supplied Westheimer $25 per week to make Sexually Talking. After a few weeks it was observed that work stopped within the constructing as studio and workplace employees gathered to take heed to this “cross between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse”, because the Wall Avenue Journal later described her.
Her midnight present on a small, struggling station was getting higher rankings than peak-period programmes on main channels. Westheimer appeared on Late Night time With David Letterman in 1982 and was quickly a family identify throughout the US. Her cable TV present was quickly rolled out throughout the US as The Dr Ruth Present.
Her radio programme Ask Dr Ruth was syndicated nationally and internationally, so she grew to become as well-known in London and Hong Kong as she was in New York. In addition to a weekly sequence on Israeli TV, she contributed to ITV’s This Morning breakfast present and spots on tv in Luxembourg, Switzerland and France – she spoke English, French, German and Hebrew.
She subsequently starred in The All New Dr Ruth Present and You’re On the Air with Dr Ruth and reached youngsters and younger folks with What’s Up, Dr Ruth? (1989), in addition to senior residents with By no means Too Late (1992).
Intercourse and sexuality weren’t her solely issues. She was additionally concerned in documentaries on household and spiritual values, Ethiopian Jews and Bedouin girls, and in 2023 was named New York state ambassador to loneliness. Whereas she managed to assist so many individuals perceive the necessity for sexual literacy, she by no means took herself significantly, and was completely happy to parody herself and her messages in commercials for vehicles and shampoo.
She obtained many awards and honorary levels. In 1998 Folks journal named her amongst its Most Intriguing Folks of the Century and in 2009 Playboy, in its fifty fifth anniversary version, ranked her at quantity 13 in 55 of an important folks in intercourse within the earlier 55 years. She continued for a few years to have a non-public apply and to supply assist and recommendation via her web site, and in 2019 was the topic of a documentary, Ask Dr Ruth.
Fred died in 1997. Ruth is survived by Miriam and Joel and 4 grandchildren.
