Prescription for Heterosexuality: Sexual Citizenship in the Cold War Era

CHAPTER 3. Masculinity, Sexual Function, and Male Heterosexual Health

Chapter 3 Masculinity, Sexual Function, and Male Heterosexual Health “Kent isn’t one bit like the average man,” reported Jan, a frustrated wife featured in the May 1963 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal. “He’s cold— ​ sexually cold, I mean.” In other ways, Jan conceded, Kent lived up to her expectations of an attentive spouse. “He is extra good about opening doors for me, pulling out my chair, remembering holidays,” she acknowledged. “But if we make love three or four times a month, Kent is satisfied.” She, however, was not. On their recent wedding anniversary, Jan “put romantic records on the hi-­ fi, candles on the dinner table, [and] wore a sexy negligee.” After dinner, though, Kent chose to hit golf balls with his coworkers at the local driving range, leaving her home alone, “all dressed up in my sexy black chi≠on with nobody to admire it or me.”1 Although Kent had a successful career as a physicist and in all other ways fulfilled the duties and responsibilities of manhood, his lack of sexual interest— ​ as illustrated by his decision to abandon his scantily clad and sexually eager wife for a golf outing with his buddies— ​ cast a heavy shadow of doubt on his masculinity. The male reader who reported on the original Ladies’ Home Journal story in a 1964 article for Playboy lewis—final pages 71 72 male heterosexual health was appalled by Kent’s sexual shortcomings, concluding that “Kent was the sort of chap who would bear watching in the men’s locker room.”2 After all, what kind of man could pass up a buxom wife in a black chi≠on negligee for a bucket of balls at the driving range? Certainly not a healthy, normal— ​ and by definition, heterosexual— ​ American male. Things were not quite that simple, however. The author of the article went on to describe for the readers of the Ladies’ Home Journal how Kent and Jan’s marriage was saved when Jan learned to be less assertive in the bedroom.3 In most ways, the white, middle-­ class couple had been living up to the expected roles of suburban domesticity: Jan was a full-­ time homemaker , and Kent was employed in a professional position and spent his free time playing a respectable game like golf rather than boozing at a corner bar or betting on dog races. Despite these outward trappings of normality, the couple’s di∞culties in the bedroom were symptoms of their failure to fulfill the requisite gender roles. In particular, Jan displayed a lack of femininity with her sexual demands, and Kent felt that his authority as a husband had been usurped. Once Kent came to believe that he was in control of their sexual relationship, his desire and mood improved. The article served to remind female readers that, while their cooperation in the bedroom was much appreciated, it was vitally important that they not preempt their husbands’ role as the sexual initiator. Sex, the article implied, was a man’s job. Medical professionals of the mid-­ twentieth century agreed. Although they encouraged women to take the initiative on occasion and to expect sexual pleasure in marriage, the management of marital sexuality remained part of the male division of household labor. For men such as Kent, remaining in control of his and his partner’s sexual activity was an important factor in maintaining his sense of masculinity. Without that control, he lost interest, became aloof, and rejected his wife’s sexual overtures. Readers of medical journals, like the readers of the Ladies’ Home Journal, were told that healthy male heterosexuality included playing the role of the sexual initiator. Even after marriage, men still wanted to seduce their wives, to entice them with their prowess and promise of pleasure. There was no “thrill of the chase” with a woman who regularly met her husband at the door in a sexy nightgown . According to both medical and popular literature, men desired wives who were feminine, delicate, and nurturing. A woman devoid of these traits might threaten a man’s masculinity and, by placing high demands on his sexual performance, interfere with both his desire and ability to perform in lewis—final pages 72 male heterosexual health 73 the bedroom. In short, unless a man’s masculinity went unchallenged, he was certain to su≠er some sort of sexual dysfunction.4 Masculinity seemed to...