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Conflicted: A History Podcast · Evergreen Podcasts

The Kinsey Report – Part 1

January 25, 2024·1 hr 4 min·1 clip
It's August 20, 1953—K-Day—and everyone in America is thinking about sex.
Zach Cornwell introduces 3-part Conflicted series on Dr. Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Report. Part 1 focuses on Kinsey's background and path to sex research. Episode establishes August 20, 1953 (K-Day) as pivotal moment when male sexuality report released, becoming bestseller (200K copies in 2 months). Explores how report revealed massive gap between public morality and private behavior, introduced Kinsey Scale (sexuality spectrum), and triggered congressional inquiries and FBI surveillance. Contextualizes era: post-WWII paranoia, Red Scare, McCarthy-era repression of counter-cultural ideas. Explains Kinsey's life story: meeting Clara at Indiana University in 1920, becoming Eagle Scout type naturalist, honeymoon camping in White Mountains. Sets up Parts 2-3 which will cover research methodology and cultural consequences.

As heard by us

A future sexual revolutionary is traced back to a frightened boyhood inside an extremely religious New Jersey home.

Zach Cornwell begins this first part of a three-part series on Alfred Kinsey with a frightened boyhood: a 13-year-old in suburban New Jersey, growing up under an extremely religious patriarch and trying to make sense of bodily urges he has been taught to regard as very bad.

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Why you'd press play

You get a tense first chapter on Alfred Kinsey, often described here as the father of the sexual revolution.

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