I woke up Monday morning as sunlight filtered through new spring leaves and fell on my window and the tiny chapel below my room. Springtime on the East Coast is striking to someone who lives in California and never witnesses such a verdant rebirth. Spring is often associated with youth and innocence, but in reality it is dramatic resurgence of life, reproduction, and vitality that is neither innocence or inexperienced. In fact Spring should be a celebration of sexuality and passion. After all, those flowers on the trees and the songs bird sing are all advertisements for sex.

Looking out my window still foggy from sleep and a little jet lagged, I started to think about sexuality and new beginnings.  I realized that the tranquil and blossoming landscape I was gazing upon is home to rebirth of sexuality research, after all I’m in Bloomington, Indiana home of Alfred Kinsey, the Kinsey Institute, and the Center for Sexual Health Promotion.

It’s my first time here, and it feels like a pilgrimage. Walking around a campus and a town that has not changed much since Kinsey worked here, I wonder if the abundance of Spring in this sleepy Indiana town inspired his sexuality research. While he may have lived during a moment in American history where human sexuality was silenced, the natural...