Hello and welcome to Conflicted, the history podcast where we talk about the struggles that shaped us, the tough questions that they pose, and why we should care about any of it.

Conflicted is a member of the Evergreen Podcast Network, and as always, I'm your host, Zach Cornwell.

You are listening to Part 2 of a three-part series on the life, work, and cultural impact of Dr. Alfred Kinsey.

We're going to hit the ground running today, but before we jump back into the story,

let's take a few minutes to remind ourselves of what we've covered so far.

Last time, in the Kinsey Report Part 1, we spent some time getting to know the eponymous professor.

But rather than open on his childhood, rather than begin the story at square one,

I wanted to introduce Kinsey through the eyes of the most important person in his life,

his future wife, Clara McMillan, or Mac. Chronicling their courtship at warp speed,

we watched as Mac and Prock met, fell in love, and got married in a whirlwind romance beneath

the trees at Indiana University.

But the Kinsey's fairy tale love story was stopped in its tracks by a rude awakening on their

honeymoon. Not only were they both virgins, but casualties of the pervasive sexual ignorance

of the time, an era where basic biological facts about reproductive anatomy were barely

taught or even mentioned. Needless to say,

Mac and Prox's first attempt at getting down was a painful and embarrassing disaster. For Kinsey

especially, it was a vivid reminder of his unhappy childhood, dominated by a fundamentalist father

who drenched the topic of sex in a radioactive slop of repression, religion, and guilt.

But Kinsey eventually moved past all that.

He dropped his Bible like a bad habit and picked up a science textbook instead. A few years,

hundreds of exams and a couple degrees later, the shy boy from Hoboken had broken his cocoon

to become a respected and outgoing professor at Indiana University. But despite he and Max's initial

...