I am lucky that I live in the United States where we have some sexual freedom. If I want to get naked and masturbate like a monkey in front of the television all night long, no one’s going to say anything or threaten to cut something off. While there is still plenty of judgment when it comes to sex in this country, and throughout most countries, we are mostly free to express ourselves sexually. But I have been influenced by people throughout the years, and I’m sure you have been as well. The person most likely to have some type of influence on your sexual identity would probably be your spouse or your significant other. And I say this because of the obvious reason; they are the person most likely to engage with you in your sexual proclivities. (Some of you may have some extra partners, but in most cases there’s only one partner.)

Your spouse is often the person who’s going to see everything that you are sexually. They are the person who you are hopefully revealing your deepest sexual desires too, and possibly experimenting with. Without a doubt, your spouse plays an influential role on who you are sexually. It may be good, it may be bad, but it is more than likely that they have played some sort of role, especially if you have been together for a long time.

I’m speaking from experience on this topic. Before I met my wife, I was quite active in the BDSM community. I was young and trying to experience everything I could, and I was drawn like a moth to the flame when it came to BDSM. I had a blast and began to find my place in that community as a Dominant. Then I met my wife. She really had no idea about the BDSM community when we first met and wasn’t very open sexually. We discussed my involvement and she was willing to try, but she wasn’t having a good time. She was trying something that she didn’t like for my sake. Over time I saw that I needed to make a decision between my wife and BDSM. She never gave me that ultimatum, but I could see the strain and I chose my wife.

Over the next few years, we had a nice sex life. I was always the one pushing the envelope and I could tell when something wasn’t up her alley. She would try something I introduced, but I could always tell if it was something she like or not based on her reactions. Her reactions and wants did an effect on my sexual identity. Because I wasn’t someone who was going to cheat on her my sexual life was framed through either what I did on my own or what I did with her, so of course she was going to have some influence on me sexually.

In the last year, I think we've had a bit of a role reversal in terms of influence. I never lost interest in BDSM, but have relegated it to my writings and some of the erotica I’d read. But this year my wife and I had several long discussions about our sex life. Because of her religious upbringing, she never felt comfortable expressing herself sexually, or really enjoying herself fully in the bedroom. There was never any real reason for her not to enjoy herself, I’m someone who really enjoys providing pleasure to my partner, but it was something that we had to deal with. So we tried some new things. She read the “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy, and while she didn’t love the writing, she was intrigued by some of the BDSM play within it. We began to experiment slowly with BDSM, really to just test the waters. It felt great to be doing something that I had really enjoyed years ago, and my wife was enjoying it as well. There were some starts and stops of course, but things became more and more intense. She began to want to read more and more material about BDSM and bring it up in conversation with me. In the last few months, things have become more and more intense and now we are somewhere I never would have imagined a few years ago. It has been an amazing transformation to see in her. I love watching her truly begin to fully enjoy herself sexually. I believe this was a case of her allowing herself to throw off the shackles of guilt and to truly enjoy herself. I feel that my tastes have influenced her and she has done the same with me.

There is nothing wrong with a spouse having some form of influence on your sexual identity. They’re the person you’re on this journey with and will have some sort of effect on you, even in the subtle ways. I don’t think it is something that should be looked at with scorn if your spouse does have some effect on you, but it is something we should be conscious of. And hopefully my wife and I are going to continue to grow in this new role and influence each other over the course of the new few months and years. I think this is one of the few social interactions regarding sex that can be positive, because it can encourage communication between your and your partner.