RIP Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

[AchtungNight]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/07/13/dr-ruth-westheimer-sex-dead/

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, celebrity sex therapist and inspiration for my unhinged sex-positive psychologist character Lisa Coleman, has passed away. May her wisdom live on.

I'm certain she inspired other authors here also, so I'm creating this thread in commemoration. Please share your thoughts.

 

[litfan10]

I was shocked to read as a late teen she was trained as a sniper and was severely injured in a mortar attack, almost losing both of her feet.
Who knew?
I appreciate how she normalized sex and made it publicly okay, kinks and all.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Oh, no!

 

[lovecraft68]

I remember listening to her show at night in my late teens back when it still seemed taboo to talk about it and she dealt with some controversy.

Now you say Hawk Tua in some street interview and your famous.

 

[intim8]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/07/13/dr-ruth-westheimer-sex-dead/

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, celebrity sex therapist and inspiration for my unhinged sex-positive psychologist character Lisa Coleman, has passed away. May her wisdom live on.

I'm certain she inspired other authors here also, so I'm creating this thread in commemoration. Please share your thoughts.

I have a WIP that is on a far back burner, with a female MC who develops career aspirations that I hadn't quite pinned down. Now I know. She wants to be Dr. Ruth. It fits her arc perfectly, because she starts the story grotesquely and pathologically self-repressed sexually.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Another Ruth lost to the cause of freedom and women's rights. Dr. Ruth's normal, everyday approach to sex was a welcome and valuable contribution to equality of all sexes and genders, a realistic approach to counter both Puritanical morals and the Playboy philosophy. She will be missed, but long remembered.

 

[litfan10]

Oddly enough, Richard Simmons also passed away today.

 

[SimonDoom]

She was an important and positive figure in the history of sex and its acceptance. The fact that she was not, herself, perceived as a "sexy figure" in the usual sense lent her words a lot of credence, I think.

 

[Yarglenurp]

For a very selfish reason, I don’t like seeing these types of stories… constant reminder that I’m not getting younger.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

For a very selfish reason, I don’t like seeing these types of stories… constant reminder that I’m not getting younger.

I find getting older to be a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

 

[Yarglenurp]

I find getting older to be a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Problem is that this “better” grows less better with each passing year.

 

[AchtungNight]

And we’ve lost Shannon Doherty as well now. I’ll always remember her in Mallrats. :sigh:

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Ruth Westheimer was very good at educating through television talk show segments, and doing so in a way that made it possible for the viewer to think of sex as recreational, and fun. She made what I think of as a lasting contribution to a culture of guilt-free physical pleasure.