Westheimer died Friday at his home in Fresh York Town, surrounded by his family, according to publicist and good friend Pierre Lehu.
Westheimer never advocated dangerous sexual habits. In turn, they inspired a candid discussion of heretofore closed-door problems that affected their target market of millions. A common theme they had was that it was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I still hold old-fashioned values and I’m a bit of a nerd,” she told scholars at Michigan Town Top College in 2002. “Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it is a topic we must talk about.”
Westheimer’s lilting, German-accented intonation, coupled with her 4-foot-7 body, made her an unlikely look – and sound – outlet for “sexual literacy.” Contradiction was perhaps the biggest key to his good fortune.
But it was certainly his extensive knowledge and training, coupled with his witty, non-judgmental manner, that propelled his local radio program, “Sexually Speaking”, into the national spotlight in the early 1980s. He had a first-hand account of what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their own home.
In June 1982 she informed a caller, “Tell him you will not initiate.”
As a sign of his fascination with generations and social tradition, a tribute came from actor-comedian Adam Sandler – “He always made us smile,” he wrote on X – to Fresh York Governor Kathy Hochul, who presented Westheimer with the order of the day. Appointed ambassador of loneliness. “May his memory be a blessing,” the governor said in a comment. “She was brave, funny, articulate and brilliant.”
His radio good fortune opened ancient doors, and in 1983 he wrote the first of more than 40 books: “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” demystifying sex with both rationality and humor. There was also a board entertainment, Dr. Ruth’s Excellent Orgasm Entertainment.
She soon became a familiar fixture on the late-night TV talk-show circuit, bringing her character to the national scene. Her rise to her feet coincided with the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when frank sexual conversation became a necessity.
“If we could talk about sexual activity the same way we talk about diet – the way we talk about food – without implying that there’s something wrong with it, then we Will be a step forward. But we have to do it with good taste,” he informed Johnny Carson in 1982.
He normalized the usefulness of phrases like “penis” and “vagina” on radio and TV, aided through his Jewish grandmother’s speech, which Wall Side Road magazine once described as “a mix between Henry Kissinger and Minnie Mouse.” ” Said. .” Family Copy included him on its list of “The Most Interesting People of the Century.” He even made it into a Shania Twain track: “No, I don’t need proof to show the truth/Dr. . “Even Ruth won’t tell me how I feel.”
Westheimer defended abortion rights, advised people to have sex after a great evening’s entertainment, and was a vocal supporter of condom utility. She believed in monogamy.
In the eighties, she stood up for gay men at the height of the AIDS epidemic and spoke out loudly for the LGBTQ nation. He noted that he defended a population deemed “subhuman” by some far-right Christians because of his personal age.
Born Karola Ruth Siegel in Frankfurt, Germany in 1928, she was a gifted child. At the age of 10, she was sent by her parents to Switzerland to escape Kristallnacht – the Nazis’ 1938 massacre that served as a precursor to the Holocaust. He never saw his people again; Westheimer believed they were killed within the fuel chambers at Auschwitz.
At the age of 16, she moved to Palestine and joined the Haganah, the underground movement for Israeli sovereignty. She was trained as a sniper, although she said she never fired at anyone.
His legs were seriously injured when a bomb exploded in his dormitory, killing many of his friends. She said it was only during the work of a “wonderful” surgeon that she could move and ski again.
She married her first husband, an Israeli soldier, in 1950, and so they moved to Paris for training. Despite the fact that he had no longer graduated high school, Westheimer was enrolled at the Sorbonne to study psychology in order to pass the entrance exams.
The marriage took place in 1955; At the time, Westheimer was visiting New York with her former lover, a Frenchman who became her second husband and father of her daughter, Miriam.
In 1961, after the second judicial separation, she met her future husband Manfred Westheimer, a fellow refugee from Nazi Germany. The couple were married and had a son, Joel. They were married for 36 years until “Fred” – as she called him – died in 1997 due to heart failure.
Later, after receiving a doctorate in training from Columbia College, she went to teach at Lehman Faculty in the Bronx. There as he grew older he developed an area of expertise – coaching professors to teach sexual training. This may eventually become the core of his curriculum.
“I soon realized that I knew a lot about education, but I really didn’t know enough about sex,” she wrote in her 1987 autobiography. Westheimer decided to speak with renowned sex therapist, Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan.
What used to happen was that she would come on his call. Soon, as she once said in an oft-quoted popular comment, she was dishing out sexual advice “like good chicken soup.”
“I come from an Orthodox Jewish home so sex was never considered a sin for us Jews,” she told The Mother in 2019.
His radio program was nationally syndicated in 1984. When a moment came, he debuted his own personal TV program, “The Dr. Ruth Show”, which went straight to winning the Ace Award for Excellence in Cable TV.
She also wrote a nationally syndicated recommendation column and in the following days appeared in a series of films produced by Playboy, preaching visual sexual discourse and the virtues of excellent intercourse. He also had a line of calendars.
His standing on his own feet was a great fit for future tradition, according to which then-President Ronald Reagan’s leadership was deliberately anti-fatherhood and aligned with conservative voices.
Phyllis Schlafly, a staunch anti-feminist, wrote in a 1999 article “The Dangers of Sex Education” that Westheimer, in addition to Gloria Steinem, Anita Hill, Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres, and others, were selling “provocative sex chatter” and ” Immorality on a large scale.”
Father Edwin O’Brien, communications director for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, who would go on to become a cardinal, described his images as horrifying and morally compromising.
“This is pure hedonism,” O’Brien wrote in an opinion piece published by The Wall Side Road magazine in 1982. “The message is just to keep yourself busy; what feels good is good. There is no higher law, and no responsibility, to rise above morality.”
Westheimer made appearances on “The Howard Stern Radio Show,” “Nightline,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “The Dr. Oz Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman.” He performed as himself in the episodes “Quantum Leap” and “Love Boat: The Next Wave”.
Her books include “Sex for Dummies”, her autobiographical works “All in a Lifetime” (1987) and “Musically Speaking: A Life Through Song” (2003). The documentary “Ask Dr. Ruth” aired in 2019.
Throughout her career as a radio and TV character, she remained devoted to teaching, with positions at Yale, Hunter, Princeton, and Columbia universities and a busy faculty lecture agenda. He also maintained a private practice during his party.
Westheimer received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew Union Faculty-Institute of Faith for his paintings of human sexuality and his devotion to the Jewish population, Israel, and the faith. In 2001 he won the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Leo Beck Medal, and in 2004, he won the honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the Trinity Faculty.
“Ask Dr. Ruth” director Ryan White told Vice in 2019 that Westheimer was never in control of the developments. She was always gay rights’ best friend and an advisor to those planning them.
“She was at the forefront of both of these things her entire life. I met her orphanage friends and said that even when she met gay people throughout her life in her 30s, 40s and 50s, she still always accepted them.” Used to treat people and always said that people should be treated with respect.”
She leaves behind two children, Joel and Miriam, and four grandchildren.
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