Ruth Westheimer, Sexologist Known to Millions as ‘Dr. Ruth,’ Dies at 96

His death was confirmed by Pierre Lehu, publicist and co-author of several works, but no cause was specified.

Described as the first superstar sexologist, Dr. Westheimer was in her 50s when she debuted in 1980 on WYNY in New York with “Sexually Speaking.” The radio show initially aired in 15-minute episodes, then was syndicated and expanded to two hours to accommodate the avalanche of questions she received from callers. More than one listener has said it saved their marriage.

Cable TV viewers knew her as the strict, matronly host of “Good Sex With Dr. Ruth Westheimer” in the 1980s and as a frequent guest on late-night talk shows. Standing at 4-foot-4, she was often seen perched on a chair, adorned in pearls, cheerfully dispensing advice on best practices in bed.

“Good sex!” she shouted in her instantly recognizable German-accented voice.

Dr. Westheimer’s old-world accent, sometimes incongruous with her discussions of intimate anatomy and its use, was one of the few traces of her life before she came to the United States. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany, she survived the Holocaust in a Swiss orphanage where her parents sent her before they died.

“I felt that because I hadn’t been killed by the Nazis—because I had survived—I had an obligation to leave a mark on the world,” Dr. Westheimer once told a reporter. What she didn’t know, she added, was that doing so would require her to “talk about sex from morning to night.”

After the war, she went to Israel, where she joined the Haganah paramilitary group fighting for the Jewish state (and where, she says, she lost her virginity in a hayloft). She then went to France and New York, where she learned English before studying to be a career counselor.

Dr. Westheimer taught college courses on human sexuality before a producer at WYNY, an NBC affiliate, hired her for a quarter-hour segment that first aired Sundays after midnight. Within a year, she had moved to the 10 to 11 p.m. time slot. Early fans wore T-shirts that read, “Sex on Sundays? You bet!”

The sexual revolution that had begun two decades earlier had freed the masses from taboos, but had done little to alleviate problems such as erectile dysfunction and the inability to achieve orgasm. Like Julia Child who went on public television to teach French cooking, Dr. Westheimer turned to the airwaves to explain, in simple terms, the ways of making love.

She wasn’t the first therapist on the air; Joyce Brothers, for one, had preceded her by a generation. But few, if any, could match Dr. Westheimer’s combination of candor and good humor. Besides, she said, people found her unthreatening.

“If I had been a tall blonde in a miniskirt and low-cut top,” she told the Sunday Times of London, “if I had been young and pretty, it wouldn’t have worked.”

Dr. Westheimer told his audience that “anything that two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms is fine with me.” Masturbation, fantasies, sex dolls – he was fine with it all.

Newsweek magazine once reported his response when asked about unconventional sexual practice: “What’s wrong with eating peanut butter or using new onion rings, as long as there’s a relationship?”

Her main concern was her safety. The New York Times recorded her response to a young woman who, like so many others, had called her because she was considering losing her virginity.

“Don’t do it,” Dr. Westheimer said. “I hear in your question that he’s pressuring you. Listen to that voice inside you that tells you you’d like to wait. Tell it that Dr. Westheimer told you that you can hold, kiss, caress, but you’re just not ready.”

Dr. Westheimer warned the woman not to forget to take reliable birth control as soon as she felt ready.

Many of the calls were from members of the opposite sex. She said two of the most common problems Dr. Westheimer treated over the years were premature ejaculation and the inability to maintain an erection.

“Gentlemen, you are all ignorant!” she once said. “You are constantly worrying about penis size. Let’s shout it from the rooftops: penis size has nothing to do with a woman’s sexual satisfaction.”

She has become an irresistible subject of parody, notably on “Saturday Night Live.” Some mental health professionals have warned that she is unable to properly diagnose or counsel a person in a brief on-air exchange.

Dr. Westheimer countered that she was simply educating viewers so they could prevent unwanted pregnancies, avoid sexually transmitted diseases and improve their sex lives. Criticism aside, the consensus was virtually unanimous: she made good television.

“Once you’ve talked about sex with Dr. Ruth,” television critic Tom Shales once wrote, “can it be as good with anyone else?”

Karola Ruth Siegel, an only child, was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 4, 1928.

She first learned about sex when she discovered an illustrated book in her father’s library that her parents had tried to hide from her. It was “The Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique,” ​​a popular 1920s manual by Dutch gynecologist Th. H. Van de Velde. Far from limiting her, she said, her Orthodox Jewish upbringing taught her that sex within marriage was a good thing.

A week after Kristallnacht in 1938, the Nazis took her father to a labor camp. “I was looking out the window,” she told the Guardian in London, “and I saw my father getting into a covered truck… He forced a smile and that was the last time I saw him.”

She saw her mother for the last time the following year, through the window of the train that was carrying her and other Jewish children to Switzerland. Her grandmother, she remembers, was chasing her along the platform.

In a children’s home, surrounded by young people who had also been deprived of their families, “Karola” shared her knowledge on topics such as menstruation. For several years, she received letters from her family at the orphanage. Then, one day, the letters stopped.

Like many other European Jews who survived, she tried to build a new life in Israel. “I never killed anyone,” she once told USA Today about her service in the Haganah, “but I know how to throw hand grenades and shoot.” During one skirmish, she was seriously wounded by shrapnel from a cannonball.

She married an Israeli soldier, David, and moved with him to France, where she trained in psychology at the Sorbonne before divorcing. In the mid-1950s, she moved to the United States with her French boyfriend, Dan, whom she married after becoming pregnant. They also divorced. In 1961, she married Manfred Westheimer, also a refugee from Nazi Germany, who died in 1997.

She worked as a housekeeper while pursuing her studies, earning a master’s degree in sociology from the New School for Social Research in 1959 and a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1970. Among her mentors was Helen Singer Kaplan, a leader in psychosexual therapy.

Early in her career, Dr. Westheimer worked with Planned Parenthood and as a sex education teacher, developing a specialty in sex therapy. For years, she ran a private counseling practice in addition to her radio programs. Her franchise included a series of best-selling books, including “Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex,” “Sex for Dummies,” and “Dr. Ruth’s Sex After 50: Revving Up the Romance, Passion and Excitement!”

Her book, “First Love: A Young People’s Guide to Sexual Information,” published in 1985, included an erroneous statement that “the safe periods (for intercourse) are the week before and the week of ovulation.” A New Jersey librarian detected the typo (the intended word was “unsafe”), leading to the recall of more than 100,000 books.

“Even big names like me make mistakes,” Dr. Westheimer said at the time.

There was a Dr. Ruth board game and videotapes. She inspired a play, “Becoming Dr. Ruth” by Mark St. Germain, and made frequent appearances on television and in films.

He is survived by two children and four grandchildren.

One day, a reporter asked Dr. Westheimer what she thought her legacy would be.

“I think people will say she had guts — in Jewish tradition, it’s called chutzpah. She had the nerve to talk about things that other people were too anxious to talk about,” she told the Washington Post. “I don’t mind people saying they’re turned on by my radio show,” she continued. “I think it’s great. I’ve given you some foreplay. But take it seriously. Don’t let boredom creep into your bedroom.”