Dr. Ruth Westheimer, celebrity sex-therapist and 80's TV icon, has passed at the age of 96.
It's hard to measure the impact of Westheimer on a couple of generations of Americans. For Boomers, she was a clarifying voice for adults who had grown up in an era where the best hope for sex advice was friends and magazines featuring iffy articles (yes, I'm including Cosmo). For Gen-X, she was there as that generation was exploring sex for the elder part of the generation, and if you were younger, like myself, opening our eyes that all kinds of sex was normal and we shouldn't treat it like a dirty secret.
For a while, Westheimer was on talk shows and she had her own talk-show where people would call in, and you'd hear their hang-ups and issues, and Westheimer would walk them through their feelings and make some suggestions.
During her time on TV, I recall her mentioning her time in the Israeli army and that she could still disassemble and re-assemble a machinegun with her eyes closed. This is because Westheimer was born in Germany in the 1920's, was one of her family's only survivors of the Nazis, and an early arrival foe what would become Israel - serving in Haganah.
It is true that Westheimer, who was small (under 5'0"), adorable and motherly, plus she had the accent Americans already associated with European scientists, she became easy to caricature, and she became bigger than life. She's even a character in the OG Dark Knight Returns comic in one of the darkest passages of that graphic novel.
Westheimer co-existed with the Jerry Falwell's and the last gasps of the Catholic League having any say-so or strength in American cultural conversations. But in a period where televangelists and politicians were getting busted for their shenanigans (all of which is way darker than you knew at the time) at least Dr. Ruth had bold-faced honesty on her side.
Arguably, Dan Savage picked up Westheimer's torch, but throwing the gates open to all kinds of sex and a few campsite rules. But Westheimer was a sensation for a bit there. That said, she seemed to arrive very suddenly, was constantly on TV for a bit, and then somehow vanished while I wasn't looking. And over the years, I've wondered what the hell happened to her as she just disappeared from public life. For at least 10 years, I wasn't sure if she was live or not.
I find it fascinating how much impact this one person - with just the right credentials and persona - did have on America. Sure, we kids watched out of prurient interest. But we did watch! And we accidentally learned stuff along the way.
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