Dr. Ruth Westheimer, pioneering sex therapist, dies at 96

By Mark Kennedy Associated Press

3 days ago

FILE - Dr. Ruth Westheimer signs a copy of her book "Sexually Speaking" in New York o ... — FILE – Dr. Ruth Westheimer signs a copy of her book "Sexually Speaking" in New York on April 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE – Talk show host Phil Donahue, center, poses with several other prominent television personalities after the taping of "Donahue: The 25th Anniversary," in New York, Oct. 1992. From left, Jenny Jones, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Faith Daniels, Larry King, Donahue, Connie Chung, Maury Povich, Jerry Springer and Montel Williams. Westheimer, the sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, died on Friday, July 12, 2024. She was 96. (AP Photo/Joe Major, File)

FILE – Sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer talks with rock singer Cyndi Lauper in New York, Jan. 17, 1985. Westheimer, the sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, died on Friday, July 12, 2024. She was 96. (AP Photo/Nancy Kaye, File)

Dr. Ruth Westheimer holds a copy of her book "Sex for Dummies" at the International Frankfurt Book Fair ‘Frankfurter Buchmesse’ in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007. Westheimer, the sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, died on Friday, July 12, 2024. She was 96. (AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer)

FILE – New Penthouse Pet of the Year Ginger Miller, left, of Los Angeles, talks with sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, both embraced by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione at a party in Miller’s honor in New York on Monday, Dec. 6, 1988. Westheimer, the sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, died on Friday, July 12, 2024. She was 96. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

NEW YORK — Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the diminutive sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, has died. She was 96.

Westheimer died on Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, according to publicist and friend Pierre Lehu.

Westheimer never advocated risky sexual behavior. Instead, she encouraged an open dialogue on previously closeted issues that affected her audience of millions. Her one recurring theme was there was nothing to be ashamed of.

“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.”

Westheimer’s giggly, German-accented voice, coupled with her 4-foot-7 frame, made her an unlikely looking — and sounding — outlet for “sexual literacy.” The contradiction was one of the keys to her success.

But it was her extensive knowledge and training, coupled with her humorous, nonjudgmental manner, that catapulted her local radio program, “Sexually Speaking,” into the national spotlight in the early 1980s. She had a nonjudgmental approach to what two consenting adults did in the privacy of their home.