Long Live Dr. Ruth and Her Sex Positive Legacy

Renowned Sexologist Gave World the Gift of Frank Talk

Born June 4, 1928, Karola Ruth Westheimer (née Siegel) was not visibly intimidating, ultimately reaching a towering peak height of 4 feet 7 inches. She lost her father, Julius, in the Auschwitz concentration camp after she saw him loaded into a truck by the Gestapo when she was 10. She was promptly sent by her mother and grandmother via the Kindertransport rescue train to a Swiss school for her safety.

It was the last time as a child that she was ever hugged. For six years, she cleaned the orphanage and helped care for the other 300 Jewish children. Because she was a girl, she was not allowed to pursue an education. With the secret help of a fellow orphanage boy who loaned her his books, she was able to study at night.

What happened to Ruth’s mother and grandmother is unknown. The Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center lists her mother Irma as being one of the verschollen or “disappeared/murdered.” Every member of her family died in the camps, which left her with intense survivor’s guilt.

When the war ended, 16-year-old Ruth emigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine and joined Kibbutz Ramat David. When she turned 17, she took her middle name as her first name and joined the Haganah (IDF) where she became a sniper and scout. Three years later, she celebrated her 20^th birthday by nearly losing both of her feet in Jerusalem due to exploding mortar fire that killed two girls next to her.

Her military career cut short by her need to re-learn how to walk, in 1950, at 22 years old, she relocated to France, married a fellow soldier, and studied psychology at the Universe of Paris (the Sorbonne). After she earned an undergraduate degree despite her war-inspired lack of high school attendance, she became a psychology teacher at the Sorbonne. Her husband chose to return to Israel, so the couple agreed to divorce.

At 28, she and her French sweetheart moved to Washington Heights, Manhattan, in the United States. The couple married, produced a daughter named Miriam, and shortly after divorced. Ruth found herself working as a maid for about $11.21 an hour modern money. It was enough, with the help of a scholarship and Jewish Family Service-assisted childcare to support her tiny family and earn a Master of Arts in sociology from The New School. Upon completion, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen and two years later, a bride for the third time when she married fellow Holocaust survivor Manfred “Fred” Westheimer. In time, they had a son named Joel.

It wasn’t until she was 42 that she completed her Doctor of Education Studies at Teachers Colleges, Columbia University. Her focus was on Family-Life Studies, which lead naturally to the developing niche of sex therapist. She trained for seven years in that capacity at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center/Cornell Medical School. Five of those years were devoted to training others, including a brief stint with Planned Parenthood in Harlem that changed her life’s direction.

Now more interested than ever in the study of human sexuality, she pursued postdoctoral education as a researcher at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. During the next five years, she served as an adjunct professor there while also teaching at a dozen other universities, including West Point, Princeton, and Yale. In her presumably free time, she saw patients in search of sex therapy in her private practice, which was in Upper East Side Manhattan.

All of these are a lot of words to say that after decades of hardship, the short Jewish woman whose heavily accented voice combined the best aspects of an adorably whiskey-throated cartoon character with the nurturing sweetness of a grandmother who talked openly about how great sex can be was finally poised to shock, amuse, and enlighten television and radio audiences.

In 1980, her non-melodic yet charming voice took to the air of WYNY-FM in New York. At the age of 52, she took called-in questions from listeners about sexuality, contraception, and unwanted pregnancies. The 15-minute, dead-of-Sunday night show named Sexually Speaking earned her $25 per show and was soon nationally syndicated. Not heavily promoted but with a large and dedicated following, the show grew to an hour within a year, moved to 10pm on Sundays, and could be heard on 90 stations. It ran for a decade and was ultimately syndicated in 93 markets.

She added Good Sex! With Dr. Ruth Westheimer in 1984 as her first television hosting gig. As before, she talked about sexuality in a way no one had ever done before. She became one of the first to talk honestly, respectfully, and without judgment about AIDS and ended each half-hour weeknight show by encouraging her audience members to “Have good sex!”

In 1985, the program was re-named The Dr. Ruth Show, given a full hour, and became the most popular programming on the Lifetime TV Network. As with so many long-time hardworking pioneers before her, the media, including The New York Times, declared her to have achieved “almost instant stardom.” Her name was a household word, she appeared on the cover of People Magazine and the board game Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex flew off game store shelves. A year later, its computer equivalent was released on MS-DOS, Apple I and Commodore 64.

Her fame continued to grow, as did the affection and appreciation of her followers. The cover of TV Guide, more branded programming on the Lifetime network, a Dr. Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex CD-ROM game for Window and CD-I, hygiene and self-care product commercial cameos, Playboy instructional video host gigs, guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Late Night with David Letterman, Joan Rivers, The Arsenio Hall Show, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, The Howard Stern Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The Daily Show all followed this instant stardom.

Perhaps most flattering were the impersonations of her on Saturday Night Live, her seven times as a panelist on The New Hollywood Squares, her 1993 guest role in season 5, episode 14 of the Quantum Leap series, and her clay-molded self in a Celebrity Deathmatch episode. Somehow, she also found the time and energy to write 45 books about sex and sexuality; win a seemingly endless number of media, academic, humanitarian, religious, and community awards, medals, and even honorary doctorates.

And she did it all with a warmth and humor that were disarming except where they were infuriating. The speaker of four languages was an early proponent of safer sex, gay rights, contraception and abortion access, comprehensive sex education, open and honest discussions about orgasms, foreplay, oral sex, masturbation, sex positions, STIs, and more, all while using non-euphemistic words like penis, vagina, condom, and other grownup words.

Naturally, this earned the ire of her Reagan-era anti-sex-for-pleasure morality squad foes, including the wildly anti-feminist activist, Phyllis Schlafly. In her 1999 essay, “The Dangers of Sex Education,” she condemned the therapist and ethnographer for promoting “provocative sex chatter” and “rampant immorality.” Included with the now-widowed Holocaust survivor turned multiple doctorate holder were celebrities and public figures including Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres, Gloria Steinem, and even Anita Hill.

None of this dimmed her star or discouraged its climb. In January 2009, the 55^th year anniversary issue of Playboy Magazine declared her #13 of its 55 most important contributors to sexuality during the past 55 years. Vanity Fair chose that same year to put her on its list of “12 women who changed the way we look at sex.”

Although still a guest on other people’s shows, in 2011 it was the living and dining rooms of the apartment she had lived in for 50 years that briefly became the stars. That was the year interior designer Nate Berkus decluttered and beautified the renowned sex educator’s living quarters. He then talked with her about it on his radio show, The Nate Berkus Show.

Some may wonder why a woman clearly financially secure would remain so long in one apartment, need only remember how many synagogues and long-term associations she had emotional investments in. Also, as she once explained, “Because of my experience with the Holocaust, I don’t like to lose friends.” While her apartment was never the focus of another interview, Dr, Ruth was.

Becoming Dr. Ruth, a one-woman play about the (in)famous sex therapist and progressive talk show host in the year 1997 opened off-Broadway in 2013. After its debut during the Sundance Film Festival, director Ryan White’s 2019 documentary, Ask Dr. Ruth opened in theaters, became a Hulu offering, and was nominated for and won several awards and much high praise.

Even into her 90s, Dr. Ruth remained deeply concerned about the well-being of others, especially those perceived as being outsiders or who suffered from loneliness. In November 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed her the state’s first-ever Loneliness Ambassador.

On July 12, 2024, a little more than a month after her 96^th birthday, Karola Ruth Westheimer (née Siegel), Ruth K. Siegel, and Dr. Ruth, passed the way of all flesh peacefully at home while her children sat next to her bed. The Joy of Connection, the book she was working on with co-authors Allison Gilbert and long-time publicist Pierre Lehu, will be released on September 3, 2024. Unlike her previous books, the topic of this collaboration is how to beat loneliness. Prior to her death, she was able to touch and be photographed with a bound copy.

The once naïve teenager who explained that, like so many before and since, she “first had sexual intercourse on a starry night, in a haystack, without contraception.” Again, like so many before and since, she also admitted decades later to The New York Times that “I am not happy about that.” Fortunately, she was also able to say, “I know much better now and so does everyone who listens to my radio show.”