Dr Ruth Westheimer: The Trailblazing TV Sex Therapist Who Redefined American Culture

Dr Ruth, the television sex therapist, was more than a blip-in-time celebrity. When Dr Ruth Westheimer passed away, the obituaries called her a trailblazer for good reason.

Beginning in 1980, Dr Ruth’s popular radio and television shows – giving frank, humorous, detailed sexual advice – promoted the idea that sex is a healthy aspect of life and that conversations about sex should be brought into the open. She landed at just the right cultural moment, and was just the right wholesome, grandmotherly character to make that message work.

With typical candour, she was often quoted as saying that her career wouldn’t have worked if she had been tall and sexy. Being a reassuring grandmotherly type was her key to mainstream acceptance. When she began her television career she was already middle-aged, a pint-sized women with a chirpy voice.

Beneath that cheery persona is a substantial cultural legacy, part of a continuum in US history. The 1960s were about sexual liberation, dividing older and younger generations. The 1970s started to bring porn out of the shadows. She was always a champion of contraception and women’s reproductive health, and an advocate for safe sex, notably during the height of the Aids epidemic.

In 2019, promoting a Hulu documentary about her life, she was still giving common-sense advice with brashness and enthusiasm, this time to millennials who complained of being too busy or stressed to have sex. No one ever said it better or with more enduring impact.