Samantha Fraser and Stephane Goulet are the kind of married couple who have always talked openly about people they find attractive. One night, a year into their marriage, they hosted a raucous house party.
While Samantha flirted with other men, Stephane made out with another woman during a game of spin the bottle. Samantha was working at a Starbucks at the time and knew many of her regular customers by their beverage of choice. Grande Red Eye Bold was a shy, something York professor she found attractive. The next day, Stephane and Samantha rented The Cabin Movie a Canadian cult classic about three couples getting it on in the woods and proceeded to have sex all weekend.
But, of course, they did. He was feeling fine. Samantha, who is 32, writes a blog about her sex life, offers polyamory life coaching and runs an annual sexuality and relationships conference called Playground this past fall the three-day event filled a ballroom at the Holiday Inn on Carlton Street. Stephane is 36 and an art director at a video game studio.
Stephane and Samantha, in the poly vernacular, are known as a primary coupleβa committed partnership in which both parties engage in sexual relationships with additional, lower-ranking lovers. This is the most common set-up, though some polyamorists live family-style in groups of three or more in the same house. Poly individuals are often bisexual like Samantha , but not always Stephane is hetero.
Polyamorists are often lumped in with swingers, though there is one key difference: the former believe in maintaining multiple emotional relationships along with all the sex. Hippies rejected monogamy in the same way they rejected haircutsβas symbols of patriarchal society. Toronto, it turns out, is one of the most poly-friendly places in North America. There have been some notable watershed moments.
