Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist better known to millions of Americans as Dr. Ruth, died on Friday night while surrounded by family at her home in New York City. She was 96. Her publicist confirmed the news to CNN on Saturday. Westheimer first rose to fame while speaking frankly about taboo sexual topics on a radio call-in show that debuted in New York in 1980 and later became a syndicated hit across the country. “I made it clear on WYNY, on my show ‘Sexually Speaking,’ that women have to take the responsibility for their sexual satisfaction,” Westheimer reflected to Vulture in 2019. “It takes away the whole idea of the ‘stupid lover,’ who doesn’t know [what he’s doing].” She also doled out advice on multiple TV shows, including Lifetime’s The Dr. Ruth Show, which often ended episodes with Westheimer encouraging her audience to “have good sex!” The four-foot-seven sexpert maintained her influence in pop culture for decades, regularly appearing on late-night shows, authoring dozens of books, and once providing Vulture with a list of Oscar-night sex bets.
Born in 1928 to a Jewish family in Germany, Westheimer was sent to Switzerland to escape the Nazis when she was 10. Her parents, who stayed behind, died in the Holocaust. After World War II, a teenage Westheimer moved to the then British-controlled Palestine and trained as a sniper for the Haganah, a Zionist militant group that later became part of the Israel Defense Forces. After studying in Paris, she left Europe for New York, where she received a master’s degree in sociology from the New School and a doctorate in education from Columbia University. Her life and career as one of the country’s most trusted voices on sex was documented in the 2019 Sundance documentary Ask Dr. Ruth.
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