Famous sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer dies at 96

Dr. Ruth Westheimer has died at age 96. Westheimer rose to fame as a sex therapist who urged the public to break from taboos and talk openly about sex.

“She was restful when she passed away. Her son and daughter were with her and holding her hand at that moment. It was as peacefully as she could possibly go. She was 96,” Pierre Lehu, who co-authored books with Westheimer, said to People Magazine.

“It’s amazing, there was stuff still going on in her life [she has a book coming out this fall with Allison Gilbert] and someone wants to make a biopic about her,” he continued.

While Westheimer never spoke in favor of risky sexual practices, her presence encouraged open dialogue on the topic. She advocated condom use.

“I still hold old-fashioned values and I’m a bit of a square,” she told students at Michigan City High School in 2002. “Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it is a subject we must talk about.”

Her local radio program, Sexually Speaking, rose to the national spotlight in the early 1980s where she presented a nonjudgmental, sometimes humorous approach to her guests and show. Throughout her career, she frequently 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.

During the 1980s AIDS pandemic, she rose as an ally of the gay community, who were targeted at the time. She also defended abortion rights.

Dr. Westheimer was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany. She survived the Holocaust while staying at a Swiss orphanage where her parents sent her before they were sent to concentration camps and killed.

Following the war, she went to Palestine where she joined the Haganah paramilitary group fighting for Jewish statehood that would later become Israel.

“I was left with a feeling that because I was not killed by the Nazis — because I survived — I had an obligation to make a dent in the world,” Dr. Westheimer said.

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In June 2023, when speaking with People Magazine about what surprised her the most in life, she said her fame and family.

“That I became famous,” She said, celebrating her 95th birthday. “That I have a wonderful daughter, son-in-law, a wonderful son and daughter-in-law and four wonderful grandchildren.”