Bettina Mary Arndt (born 1 August 1949) is an Australian writer and commentator who specialises in sex and gender issues. Starting as a sex therapist, she established her career in the 1970s publishing and broadcasting as well as writing several books. In the last two decades she has abandoned feminism and attracted controversy with her social commentary and her views on sexual abuse, domestic violence and men's rights advocacy.
Arndt was born in Penrith, England, to the economist Heinz Arndt (1915 – 6 May 2002) and Ruth (née Strohsahl) (20 March 1915 – 20 March 2001), the youngest of three children. Her parents were German, and escaped Nazi Germany prior to World War II. They emigrated to Australia in 1945 and she grew up in Canberra.
In 1971, after completing a Bachelor of Science degree at the Australian National University, Arndt moved to Sydney and studied at the University of New South Wales where she completed a Master of Clinical Psychology degree in 1973; her thesis was on orgasm dysfunction.
Arndt lives in Sydney. She was first married in 1977 to journalist Dennis Minogue who died in 1981. Arndt and Minogue were business partners during this time. Her second marriage was to American corporate lawyer Warren Scott in 1986. They were married in Watsons Bay, Sydney, and divorced in 2007. During the years 1986 to 1991 she lived with Scott in the borough of Manhattan in New York City NY. Arndt has one daughter and two sons.
After graduation, Arndt practised as one of Australia's first sex therapists in the early 1970s. In the early 1970s she was operating at a clinic in Sydney as a sexologist working mostly with women.
Arndt came to prominence in the 1970s by editing Forum, an Australian adult sex education magazine, which led to frequent radio and television appearances. She was appointed editor in 1974 and remained in the position until July 1982. This period of her career was the subject of a television documentary in the Australian Time of My Life series (2013), in which the presenter introduced Arndt as "the feisty young editor [who] taught us all we need to know, and more, about ... sex".
The Forum publication proved controversial in conservative circles, and in Queensland Parliament in 1977 MP Des Frawley said: "It is a dirty, filthy magazine." Queensland police also raided a newsagent, seizing copies of the magazine and requesting the proprietor to show cause.
Medical witnesses, including gynaecology professor Derek Llewellyn-Jones, presented evidence to a court hearing supporting Forum’s educative role in the court hearing on the matter, summed up by Magistrate Mr N. O. Scott to make the case that "the general public was ignorant or misinformed on sexual matters and there was a necessity for an education programme in this sphere. "The Anglican Dean of Brisbane, Dean George, described Forum as "a very useful educational aid to inform the public, to correct misapprehensions and therefore relieve anxieties."
Between 1973 and 1976 the Australian Broadcasting Control Board had ruled that all TV and radio programs in which Arndt took part in had to be pre-recorded so that they could be approved by station management before being transmitted. The Board explained that the ban was "imposed because most of her programs were during family viewing time... and parents wanted to have some control over the sexual information for their children."
In 1978, Arndt said that "The sexual revolution has been a damp squib", expressing some doubts about how much people were really more sophisticated in their attitudes toward sex. She acknowledged that the Women's Movement had made physiological discoveries about the sexuality of women, that there was more tolerance of a person's sexual preference, and there had been a recognition of the importance of sex for senior citizens and those with disabilities. Arndt also praised the introduction of South Australian laws criminalising rape within marriage.
Her work in sex education also involved postgraduate courses, seminars and lectures for groups including doctors and other professionals. Following the death of her husband and business partner, Dennis Minogue, in 1981, Forum magazine closed. In the mid 1980s, Arndt wrote for Australian Playboy and also wrote about broader social issues for newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. During this period Arndt also had her own radio program on 2GB and regular radio segments in major cities all over Australia. In 1982 she appeared on the TV panel-show series Beauty and the Beast and, from 1981 to 1986, was a weekly guest on television program The Today Show.
In 1983, The Sydney Morning Herald described Arndt as "the person most strongly identified with Australia's sexual revolution".
In 1984, Arndt ran a mail-order lingerie and sex toy business and authored a number of books on sex advice, including The Bettina Arndt Guide to Lovemaking for Women, in which she wrote that "Looking at what's happening to men and women in bed today, it wouldn't surprise me at all if more and more males chose to stick to their beer. Sex is fast becoming a battlefield, with women calling more of the shots."
In 1986, Arndt moved to New York City for five years and, while living in the United States, wrote a weekly newspaper column syndicated through The Age in Melbourne (and published in Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane). She had two books published featuring collections of her writings, Private Lives (1985) and All About Us (1989). In 1991, Arndt returned with her family to live in Australia.
Commentator and men's rights activist
From the 1990s onward Arndt wrote a personal advice column for Cleo, wrote for The Bulletin, The Australian and The Australian Women's Weekly. She was a guest reporter on Four Corners on ABC TV and a regular guest on ABC radio in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide. She was on the board of the Australian National University and was the president of the board of the Royal Women's Hospital Foundation in 1999. She also served as an online dating coach from 2001 to 2017, and more recently has assisted men in writing their dating profiles and referring them on to good photographers for their dating profile photos.
During the first half of her career Arndt was a self-proclaimed feminist, but since the mid 1990s has turned to men's rights advocacy. Her later work encapsulated socially conservative ideas about relationships, family structures and children out of wedlock. In 2010, Arndt said "I spent my early career lobbying for women but turned to men when I realised how lousy they are about advocating for issues that affect their private lives." Kate Gleeson, a senior lecturer at Macquarie Law School who has studied her, says "Arndt's extolling of men's rights, as well as her critique of feminist analyses of domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment and sex within marriage, has provoked feminist ire in the press", adding that "To Arndt's frustration, the male revolution she advocated of political reaction against feminism had failed to emerge."
In 1993, Arndt presented a Four Corners episode on ABC TV about alleged confusion over sexual consent titled "Yes, No, Maybe". She was criticised for downplaying rape by a group of Sydney sexual assault counsellors, who said of women who "have been raped, that in most instances they do not get a chance to say 'no'".