It didn’t take long for the subject of sex to turn up Tuesday at the funeral of Dr. Joyce Brothers.

The pioneering pop psychologist was not afraid to take on taboo subjects in her TV broadcasts, syndicated columns — or at home, her granddaughter recalled.

“It’s rather strange to discuss sex with your grandmother,” Talya Arbisser told a small gathering of relatives and friends at Riverside Memorial Chapel on the upper West Side.

“But of course, that was part of her charm, part of who she was. She was very easy to talk to.”

Brothers, 85, died Monday at her home in Fort Lee, N.J., after paving the way for the likes of Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew.

But as Brothers lay in a simple wooden coffin adorned only with a Star of David, her loved ones remembered the private woman who loved being on the farm in upstate New York with her late husband, who loved traveling the world with her four grandchildren.

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Psychologist/host Dr. Joyce Brothers was a pioneer in the early days of TV.

RELATED: DR. JOYCE BROTHERS LEAVES LEGACY AS AMERICA'S SOOTHING PSYCHOLOGIST

Her daughter, Lisa Arbisser, told mourners her mom, who doled out advice to the lovelorn, helped find her a husband.

“She helped me to make so many right decisions in my life,” she said.

Grandson Micah Arbisser choked back tears as he recalled his “baba.”

“My whole life people have asked me what it's like being the grandson of Dr. Joyce Brothers,” he said. “I never knew how to answer that. She hugged like a grandmother. She read bedtime stories like a grandmother and she puzzled over our picky food choices like a grandmother.”

But, he said, “sometimes the TV personality and the real-life grandmother intersected.”

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Dr. Joyce Brothers was a pioneer of pop psychology.

Like the time his then 70-year-old grandmother was too bruised to go snowboarding with him because she’d hurt herself doing a stunt on a TV show.

RELATED: JOYCE BROTHERS DEAD AT 85

“She had been asked to jump out of a window for a sitcom cameo and being my grandmother, she did her own stunt,” he said.

Rosemary Heath, who was Lisa Arbisser’s college roommate, said she sought Brothers’ counsel after discovering her son was autistic.

“She said, ‘Have the same expectations for your son as you have for your daughter,’ ” she said. “I’ve followed that every day. It was wise advice. She leaves a huge hole in many lives.”

Among the mourners was 79-year-old Joshua Wolinsky, who knew Brothers only from her columns and talk shows. He recited some of her sage advice from memory.

“When you take care of yourself, you’re really taking care of other people,” he recalled. “The first image of her in the newspaper when she was young, that’s the image I have of her in my mind.”

Brothers was buried after the service, but the family did not say where.

csiemaszko@nydailynews.com