By Arielle Greenberg

Photo credit: Harald Bischoff

One of my friends—someone I met through the sex-positive, ethical non-monogamy world—likes to say “life gets life-y.” What she means by this is that all of us are challenged, at times, by difficulty. Even those of us who dedicate ourselves to naughty delights have moments where that kind of stuff is the last thing on our minds. And in fact, ever since I celebrated the publication of my book, Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure and the Pursuit of Happiness, my own life has been life-y, with unanticipated hardships that put quite a stumbling block in the path to my own pursuit of happiness.

After a particularly rough stretch, I connected with Kathryn Nicolai, meditation teacher and host of the (can’t-recommend-it-highly-enough) sleep story podcast Nothing Much Happens, who told me, “What you have been going through has meant that you’ve probably gotten rusty at practicing pleasure. It’s time to try to start noticing and going toward it wherever you can.”

I think of all this as I consider the legacy of sex educator Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who passed on to another astral plane on July 12 at the wonderful age of ninety-six. With boundless enthusiasm and a rebellious twinkle in her eye, Dr. Ruth was an advocate, a champion, a heroine of pleasure. She made it her mission to tell puritanical Americans that consensual sex of all varieties is, or should be, an “enjoyable” activity—and also no big whoop.

I like to think that Dr. Ruth would have enjoyed my book and its explicit, cheery tone about non-normative sexual desire. She was someone who had no patience for worries about what kind of sexual desire is “normal”: she was all for wild fantasies, for trying new things, for “game-ifying” sex and making it an imaginative event. She also probably appreciated the deep communication good BDSM negotiation requires.

She spread this gospel with the same kind of unfettered joy that accompanied a chicken recipe shared by Julia Child, another brilliant woman who made a midlife household name for herself despite enormous patriarchal odds and unconventional “optics” appeal. The humor and mischievous candor that characterized both women made their forward-thinking, life-changing messages palatable to a mainstream audience that would have otherwise probably have never dared think about orgasms or cooking gourmet meals at home.

Like Dr. Ruth, I’m also perhaps an unlikely poster girl for sexual pleasure: another short, middle-aged, Jewish wife and mother whose Eastern European Ashkenazi cultural heritage can tend toward a less-than-sunny view on life. And while I came of age during Dr. Ruth’s heyday and have always admired her, I have recently found enormous inspiration in the fact that she maintained her lifelong attitude of playfulness and glee despite—or perhaps because of—having endured terrible hardships of her own.

Dr. Ruth was a Holocaust refugee and orphan whose parents died at Auschwitz. Later, she was severely injured and nearly died in the 1948 Israel war. She had two marriages end before she found lasting contentment in a third. And once she found her stride as America’s most beloved and unexpected sex advisor, she was routinely banned and denounced as she tried to teach an AIDS-ravaged, right-leaning country that there is nothing abnormal or sinful about sexual pleasure.

And yet Dr. Ruth kept that spark of pleasure, that pursuit of happiness, burning brightly at her own core and at the core of her professional mission. “Experiencing joy was, for her, an act of defiance,” historian Rebecca L. Davis wrote for Time Magazine.

I will admit that recommitting myself to my own pleasure practices, sexual and otherwise, is still a work in progress as I continue to navigate the life-yness of life. As certainly it’s a tough time, globally, to feel like pursuing happiness ought to be a viable priority. But I can personally tell you that when I do find ways to deeply notice and be present with the inevitable joys that also surface, it really does feel like a radical and transformative act.

Dr. Ruth knew this. She knew the power of pleasure, the power of choosing to shine like the sun—for the sake of others and the sake of oneself—instead of dwell in shadow. I am so grateful for her example. As our people say, may her memory be a blessing. It certainly is for me.

About the Author 

Arielle Greenberg speaks about kink and ethical nonmonogamy at universities and on such podcasts as Dear Sugar, Why Are People into That?!, and Sex Out Loud. She is the author of several books of poetry and creative nonfiction, including Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure, and the Pursuit of Happiness. A former tenured professor in English at Columbia College Chicago, she has spent over 20 years as a scholar and academic, writing about cultural studies and literature and teaching undergraduate and graduate students, as well as in the community. She identifies as a lifelong sexual fetishist. Keep up with her on Instagram (@arielle_greenberg) and on her website, ariellegreenberg.net.