Prescription for Heterosexuality: Sexual Citizenship in the Cold War Era

CHAPTER 2. Femininity, Frigidity, and Female Heterosexual Health

Chapter 2 Femininity, Frigidity, and Female Heterosexual Health June Cleaver has become the cultural icon of 1950s American womanhood . The fictitious wife and mother on the television program Leave It to Beaver, she was the model of the white, middle-­ class, suburban homemaker in the mid-­ twentieth-­ century United States. With hair perfectly coi≠ed, aprons neatly starched, pies freshly baked, and a house that was always in order, June Cleaver set a high standard for American women. Although a number of historians and personal memoirs have demonstrated that the Cleaver household was more fantasy than fact, the ideal that the Cleaver family modeled has been emblazoned upon the American cultural memory. Even half a century later, the gender identities and performances of millions of American women continue to be measured against that of June Cleaver.1 But there is something absent from the June Cleaver vision of American womanhood: sex. With two children, the Cleavers presumably engaged in intercourse at least twice in their married lives, but, thanks to strict television censorship codes, June and Ward rarely engaged in even the most casual of embraces during their lewis—final pages 37 38 female heterosexual health five years on the air. The few glimpses viewers had of their bedroom revealed matching twin beds. Although the Cleavers appeared to be an a≠ectionate and loving couple, the closest the show ever came to any hint of sexuality came from the regular and somewhat scurrilous greeting of Wally’s friend, Eddie Haskel: “That’s a lovely dress you’re wearing, Mrs. Cleaver.” While contemporary American physicians also would applaud June Cleaver ’s dress, as well as her performance as a homemaker, wife, and mother, they would not be satisfied with these public displays of her femininity. To be convinced of her psychosexual well-­ being, American physicians would question what went on in the Cleaver household after dark, behind the closed door of June and Ward’s bedroom. Did the couple experience the satisfaction and pleasure appropriate to a “normal” and “healthy” marital relationship? Most important, did Mrs. Cleaver’s sexual performance in the bedroom match her successful gender performance in the kitchen and beyond? In many ways, healthy female sexual response was considered the foundation of successful heterosexual performance for both men and women in the 1950s and continuing into the 1960s. Relying heavily upon Freudian theories of psychosexual development, medical professionals argued that how a woman climaxed sexually was a significant marker of her gender and sexual well-­ being. They maintained that only vaginal orgasm as a result of deep penile penetration was the appropriate sexual release for an adult woman because it reflected and reinforced her passive femininity. In healthy marriages , the man took charge in the bedroom, as he did in other areas of their relationship, and the woman responded to his direction. Thus, female orgasm by any other means did not qualify as well-­ adjusted, mature, healthy, or normal because it suggested that one (or possibly both) of the partners was not displaying the appropriate gender role. By the definition set by the medical profession, then, unless June Cleaver was experiencing exclusively vaginal orgasms on a regular basis, she was not a normal and healthy American woman. The significance of the female orgasm extended beyond the bedroom walls. Doctors believed that mutually satisfying physical pleasure in marriage would reinforce a couple’s emotional and legal commitment to one another. In the decades following the Second World War, couples were marrying and starting families at a younger age than ever before; they also were getting divorced at an alarming rate. Many social, political, and religious leaders worried about the e≠ect this would have on American society. How lewis—final pages 38 female heterosexual health 39 successful would our nation be if the next generation was being raised in “broken homes,” without the psychological, emotional, and financial security of a two-­ parent, heterosexual, nuclear-­ family household? As we have seen, American physicians concluded that an important step toward safeguarding the nation’s future was ensuring that couples not only were having mutually pleasurable sexual encounters but also were engaging in the sexual activities that would reinforce their broader psychosexual health. Their marriages would then be successful, they would continue to be morally upstanding citizens , they would raise well-­ adjusted children, and the nation would thrive. In the shadow of the ideological battles...