A Tribute to Pioneering Sex Educator Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Today there are a lot of experts offering sexual health information and advice on websites and social media, but in the 1980s it seemed like everyone was listening to just one: Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Already in her 50s, measuring all of 4 feet, 7 inches tall, and speaking with a heavy German accent, Dr. Ruth got her media start with an after-midnight radio and quickly became a beloved national figure.

Her call-in radio show, Sexually Speaking! ran from 1980-1990, and she hosted a series of television shows on Lifetime during those same years. In addition to her own shows and books, Dr. Ruth was a fixture on talk shows including The Arsenio Hall Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Conan O’Brien Show, and The Daily Show. A cultural icon, she appeared in movies and television shows often as herself. During her long career, she authored 45 books on sexuality, including Sex for Dummies.

Dr. Ruth’s advice was sex positive. In an early New York Times article, she explained her philosophy saying, “anything two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom or kitchen floor is all right with me.” She answered questions about orgasms, G-spots, and masturbation with candor and humor. She also educated listeners about STIs and HIV as her peak popularity coincided with the early days of the AIDS epidemic. She was in favor of contraception and abortion. She closed many of her shows by telling listeners to “get some.”

Born in Germany to Orthodox Jewish parents, Ruth was one of hundreds of children sent away to escape the Nazis. She was 10 when she went to an orphanage in Switzerland and has said she was never hugged as child after that. She was left orphaned by the war; her father was killed at Auschwitz and her mother was listed as “disappeared/murdered.” All of her other relatives were killed in concentration camps.

After the war, Ruth went to Israel where she was trained as a sniper. She’s said she had surprisingly good aim both with a rifle and a grenade. At age 90, she demonstrated that she could still put together an assault rifle with her eyes closed.

Her own romantic life was complicated. She explained that she “first had sexual intercourse on a starry night, in a haystack, without contraception.” And went on to say, “I am not happy about that, but I know much better now and so does everyone who listens to my radio program.”

Ruth married at 22 and followed her first husband to Paris but divorced when he decided to return to Israel. She married again when she got to the United States, had a daughter, and quickly divorced leaving her a single mother who worked as a maid as she put herself through graduate school. In 1961, she married her third husband, Manfred Westheimer who was also a Holocaust survivor. They had a son and remained together until his death in 1997.

Unlike some of today’s influencers, Dr. Ruth had the credentials to back up her sexuality advice. She studied psychology in Paris under Jean Piaget and went on to teach the subject at the Sorbonne. Once in the United States she got an MA in Sociology from the New School and a doctorate in Family-Life Studies from Teachers College at Columbia University. Her sexuality career began with a part-time job at Planned Parenthood where she trained others to be sex educators. She then continued her own training, studying to be a sex therapist under Helen Kaplan-Singer at Cornell Medical Center.

Part of her appeal—and how she got away with talking about sex openly in an era when few others did—was that she was perky, tiny, and older. Hearing advice on how to give a blow job (“pretend it’s an ice cream cone”) from her was a lot less threatening to both men and women than hearing it from a hotter, younger woman.

Dr. Ruth continued to speak and write into her 90s. In a 2019 special that streamed on Hulu, she told stressed out millennials: “Don’t be stupid. Make sure that you have time for sex. Here is an activity that is so enjoyable and it’s free.”

Ruth Westheimer died on July 12, 2024. She was 96. She will forever be remembered as a force for open conversation about sex.