NEW YORK.- Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the tiny therapist sexual who became a pop icon, media star and bestselling author for her frank dialogue on once-taboo bedroom topics, has died at age 96.
Westheimer died Friday at her home in New York City, surrounded by her family, according to her publicist and friend, Pierre Lehu.
Westheimer never condoned risky sexual behavior. Instead, he encouraged open dialogue about previously hidden issues affecting the millions of people in his audience. His one recurring theme was that there was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I still have old-fashioned values and I’m a bit of a square,” she told her Michigan high school students in 2002. “Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it’s a subject we need to talk about.”
Westheimer’s German-accented, cheerful voice, coupled with her diminutive 4.7-foot-tall frame, made her a unique source of image and voice for sex education. That contradiction was one of the keys to her success.
However, it was her extensive knowledge and training, coupled with her fun, non-judgmental attitude, that catapulted her local radio show, Sexually Speaking, into the national spotlight in the early 1980s. She had an open approach to what two adults would agree to do in the privacy of their own home.
Tell him you’re not going to initiate, she told a worried interlocutor in June 1982. Tell him that Dr. Westheimer said you’re not going to die if he doesn’t have sex for a week.
Her radio success opened new doors for her, and in 1983, she wrote the first of more than 40 books: Dr. Ruth’s Guide to Good Sex, which demystifies sex with rationality and good humor. She even published a board game, Dr. Ruth’s Game of Good Sex.
She soon became a frequent guest on the late-night talk show circuit, taking her personality to the national level. Her heyday coincided with the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when frank talk about sex became a necessity.
If we could talk about sexual activity the way we talk about dieting, the way we talk about food, without this connotation that there’s something wrong with it, then we’d be a step ahead. But we’ve got to do it in good taste, she told Johnny Carson in 1982.
FUENTE: AP