Our generation may occasionally take a foray into romanticism in which we envy June Cleaver, wife to Ward Cleaver and mother to Wally and Beaver Cleaver. It is not an adoration that our independent natures will gravitate toward very often, but when we look upon the re-runs of “Leave it to Beaver,” sometimes it is with an odd sense of whimsy.
One of the things we notice first about June Cleaver is how absolutely marvelous she looks. She is far from frumpy with her hair always salon-perfect, her practical yet comely dresses more often than not fitted to her trim waist, eyelashes to die for, and a lovely string of pearls resting elegantly against her neck. Hands down, the most noticeable aspect of Barbara Billingsly’s character, June Cleaver, is how rested she is. Because of this, her communication skills were straightforward and precise. I would guess that her looks and her communication skills were due to long, refreshing, naps while the boys were at school and Ward was at work.
Deeply involved within our romantic fantasies of being gorgeous, not stressing about our jobs, having the energy and inclination to hold conversations with our families, I come upon the most important ingredient concerning what makes June Cleaver so enviable. I’m going to have to guess that since she did have time for long naps, was not over-stressed by work, and was confident that all the problems that came her way were going to be worked out, her and Ward were happily involved in a healthy sex life that most couples today can’t even imagine.
It’s a fact that testosterone levels in American men have been declining steadily over the past two decades, according to the Endocrine Society and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. This would indicate why June Cleaver did indeed need naps and it also explains why she was so levelheaded, even-tempered and damn happy. That’s right, make no mistake, those couples of the 50’s and 60’s were getting it on more often and with more gusto than the couples of today. Women today are not relaxed, do not regularly feel sexy, and are not on the receiving end of high doses of male testosterone nearly as often as they’d like to be. Not only were the senior citizens who are positioned in our memories as wrinkled and bent-over doing it, they were doing it with relish. They were doing it with the same ferocious wild abandonment as any generation before or after them, and more often, which would possibly explain the low divorce rates of that time period.
That’s right, just imagine June Cleaver in divorce court. No way. She had taken naps; she felt sexy. She could tell Ward to go upstairs and give Beaver a whippin’ or whatnot and he would do as she said. She was confident to face whatever would come her way because Ward had such a high testosterone count that it drove him to keep her happy. He wanted her to join him later in what had been on his mind all day long. It wasn’t a TV show that had been on his mind, nor was it surfing the internet that enraptured his thoughts. It was his sexy, confident wife that got him happily through his day and well into his nights. Divorce was far, far, from Ward Cleaver’s mind because the structure of the Cleaver’s home was ideal for a happy marriage.
June Cleaver kept her home as neat as a pin and cleaner than the inside of a hospital. Imagine what it would be like going to bed at night without knowing that there was a sink full of dishes waiting for you, or a four-foot pile of laundry screaming your name, or a floor deep in filth from the kids letting the dog run in and out beckoning you. Imagine going to bed in a house where all the work has been taken care of, where all you have to think about is pulling back the sheet and snuggling up to your sweetheart. That’s right, you’d have your head in the game wouldn’t you?
In a society struggling with overstressed women coupling with low-testosterone-count men, sex lives will suffer. This is why women's magazines usually focus on a woman’s outer beauty; it makes her feel sexy, which is known to contribute to better sex. It’s why men’s magazines expound on fitness; exercise increases testosterone production, which makes for better sex. It seems to me that most of the men that I’ve ever run across have sex on the forefront of their brain, which absolutely makes me wonder how utterly impossible it must have been for the men of the 50’s and 60’s to make it through their day, considering that they had higher levels of sex hormones.
My generation is chock-full of feminist thought, literature, and legislation, which all make June Cleaver look like a clueless nimrod. After some careful consideration, I’d have to say that she knew exactly what she was doing. Though there are many reasons to abhor the past’s sexist culture, there are also reasons to lament some elements that have passed away.