I repressed myself. I blame my mother.

My mom is a hot mess.  I'm certain she couldn't count how many people she's slept with.  She's always dressed for sex.  She doesn't leave the house without make-up on.  She's always owned at least one pair of stripper boots.  On the outside, she is a serial monogamist, but this is a lie.  She's very good at lies.  I suspect that her cheating history goes all the way back to her first boyfriend, but I know for a fact that she cheated on my father with the man who was the best man at their wedding.  Stereotypical, but a true story.  She does not ask for respect, in fact, she revels in being treated like shit.  She is dishonest.  She's had her car keyed by jealous girlfriends on more than one occasion.  She gives directions using bars as landmarks.  She has a history of being a regular at a series of bars in town for as long as I've been paying attention.  I suspect that once a significant amount of drama has exploded at one bar, she is given no choice but to move to another.  She cannot maintain long term relationships of any sort with females, including her own mother and daughters, but also not friends.  As far as relationships go, she was always my example of what not to do.  She was a slut, but a very unethical one.  She was not empowered, she was a slave to her desires and to the men she wanted to please.

This, along with my stereotypical healthy dose of Catholic sexual guilt, left me in a weird place.  I did not want my relationships to be crazy fluctuating messes.  I also wanted sex to have some meaning.  I wanted friendships with guys, not just flings.  Serial monogamy was obviously the best thing.  One sexual relationship at a time.  Whoever I lost my virginity to had to be special.  (He wasn't, as it turns out.) 

However, once I was married, this began to change.  Shorty before the wedding we started to explore some kinky fantasies.  We stumbled into a rape role play fantasy (not the right way to do that, but it worked for us).  He fake-raped me on our honeymoon at least once.  I sought out new information on sexual pleasure, as opposed to in the past when I was reading about sexual health.

Within the safe confines of my marriage, I became a more free sexual being.  The more sex we had, the more I wanted.  We were trying to get pregnant, but I wasn't even thinking about that.  I just wanted to get fucked.  I became proficient in the art of dirty talk.  Where once I couldn't use the word "fuck" to describe the sex that I or anyone else was having, I was now asking him to fuck me and reveling in being called a slut.  I was finally able to relax and enjoy the pleasure of anal sex.  I felt like super wife that night.

When I went to my first drag show, I was surprised to find myself attracted to the drag king and more importantly, my sexy female coworker dancing with him.  I started realizing that my attraction to women wasn't just a phase a I went through in high school and felt I had an obligation to explore it.

Without the safety of marriage and monogamy to cultivate my sexual expression, I may never have been alright with embracing it.  My husband's gentle guidance and patience during our dry spell gave me the support and comfort to grow into my inner slut.  The sex-positive movement gave me the responsibility to embrace it.   When we started discussing non monogamy, my motivation was to continue to explore this person that I was just getting to know.  I'm so happy my husband is committed to making this work.  It's so important to me to know more about who I am through this lifestyle.  It feels right.  The last vestiges of the Catholic guilt and fear of becoming my mother are finally slipping away and I can be the slut I was always meant to be.