US: Famous sex therapist 'Dr. Ruth' dead at 96

Best-selling author and sex therapist Ruth Westheimer, better known simply as Dr. Ruth, died on Friday aged 96 in her home in New York City.

She passed away in the company of her family, according to her publicist and friend Pierre Lehu.

Westheimer, a pop cultural phenomenon in 1980s America, was loved by fans for her straight talk about the tabu subject of sexuality, becoming a household name with her own syndicated radio and television shows.

Though most remember the tiny matron as a spunky little woman with a heavy accent and an impishly infectious laugh, her life before fame was complex and marked by tragedy.

Surviving the Holocaust and fighting for Israeli independence

Born in Wiesenfeld, Germany, on June 4, 1928, Karola Ruth Siegel was the only child of two Jewish Orthodox parents.

At the age of 10, in the wake of the November 1938 anti-Jewish pogroms previously known as Kristallnacht, her father was apprehended by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp. Soon thereafter, her mother and grandmother set her on a train bound for Switzerland, where she was given refuge in an orphanage. It was the last time she would see any of her family.

When the war in Europe ended, she left for what was then British-mandated Palestine at the age of 16, where she trained for military action as part of an underground Zionist group known as the Haganah, which was fighting for Israeli statehood. She became a sniper during that time and was severely wounded in an explosion at her barracks.

In 1950, she and her first husband, an Israeli soldier, moved to Paris. There she studied psychology at the Sorbonne before divorcing and emigrating again, this time to the US.

A new life and a new calling in the US

In New York, she raised her daughter Miriam, the product of a brief second marriage, before meeting and marrying her third husband in 1961. She remained married to Manfred Westheimer, himself a Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor, until he died in 1997. That marriage produced another child, son Joel.

Westheimer earned a doctorate degree in education and soon began instructing professors on how to teach sex education. Finding her own background in sex education lacking, she enrolled in classes with renowned sex therapist Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan.

By 1980, she was hosting a New York City call-in radio show called "Sexually Speaking." Her frank and nonjudgmental advice on topics such as female orgasm, masturbation, consent and homosexuality were unusual for American audiences, especially during the conservative Reagan years and the age of AIDS, but it made her a surprise hit and the show was eventually syndicated — sold to multiple networks at the same time.   

Using national fame to entertain, advocate and educate

A general fascination with the humorous image of a tiny Jewish lady dishing plain-spoken sexual advice made her a favorite with talk show audiences and readers of popular magazines.

Westheimer ultimately penned 40 books and wrote regular advice columns helping people live more satisfying sex lives for decades, consistently hammering home the idea that there is nothing to be ashamed of about human sexuality.

She said that despite being old-fashioned herself, it was important that people talk about sex in order to demystify it and educate themselves — something that became increasingly important with the rise of the AIDS epidemic.

Westheimer, who believed in monogamy, was a tireless advocate for condom use, abortion rights and gay rights. She said that her own past experience had prompted her to stand up for people whom far-right Christians in the US had labeled "sub-human."

The recipient of numerous awards and the subject of documentary films and even a one-woman play, Westheimer often spoke of her gratitude for having survived the Holocaust, saying she felt it was her duty to give something back to the world.

Speaking with the Harvard Business Review in 2016, she said, "I did not know that my eventual contribution to the world would be to talk about orgasms and erections, but I did know I had to do something for others to justify being alive."

Dr. Ruth Westerheimer is survived by her two children and four grandchildren.

js/dj (AFP, AP)