Élise* is open-minded, polyamorous in theory, but not very much in practice. Because it’s like that. Maintenance.
Posted at 4:00 p.m.
“It’s not because we can do everything that we have to do everything”, sums up the thirty-year-old without a cell phone (but that’s a whole different subject!), after a good hour and a half of confidences, in a story as confused as it is immodest, not always chronological, although strangely didactic.
The young woman gave us an appointment in a pretty café in Villeray, relatively busy on this small Monday morning in June. And rarely, in journalistic memory, have we met someone so uninhibited. Disarmingly natural at times, Élise confides in complete transparency, without being in any way disturbed by the proximity of other clients: libido, trip three, even her female ejaculations, anything goes. Without filters or whispers. “We have a prostate! “, she even laughs.
Where does this openness come from? No idea. “I have nothing to lose,” she replies simply. I don’t feel like I’m losing anything by what people know about me. »
Her first time? “I think I was 18,” she replies, thinking. Finally, if we mean by first time: first relationship with vaginal penetration, ”she nuances. And no, it was not “pleasant”. Even rather painful. “But it got better over time. »
The relationship with this first lover met online (“and all of my buddies, that was it: internet dating”) lasted three years. To relax, and pass the pain, Élise stimulates herself at the same time, she remembers. “And I kept that habit. All the time… ”
Then, in the early twenties, after a few “explorations”, “hugs”, but never further (“I have never had a complete relationship with people with whom I was not officially in a relationship”), she meets a new lover, a guy with a physical disability, in a wheelchair, with whom she falls deeply in love. ” I had a crush ! The story lasts two years.
In bed ? “We adapted! she laughs. “We couldn’t have stood up, let’s say. She does not expand on the subject. This is because it is above all the gaze of others that she remembers. “It was really unpleasant. So we didn’t go out often…”
When the story ends, in her mid-twenties, Élise is “devastated”. “I was yelling all the time. I was obsessed with the idea of coming back with him. »
And then, a twist. Barely a few months later, Élise meets her current “life partner”. It was 10 years ago.
She hasn’t said a word about her famous polyamorous side yet, but we guess she’s finally getting there. “My boyfriend knew that I had that in my life course”, she slips suddenly here. Oh good ? It’s because she didn’t tell us everything.
Allow me to digress: in fact, in the early twenties, in her exploratory phase, Élise had a relationship with a guy in an open couple. A “sensual sexual” relationship, without penetration (because Élise doesn’t go “all the way” if she isn’t in a relationship, as we have said), not genital at all in fact, but no less intimate. The guy in question was in a relationship, therefore (his girlfriend “ben chill” was pregnant at the time, they are still together, three children later), and their exploration was more “ideological” than practical, we understand. Kisses and hugs included. “I have read a lot about the relational hierarchy, the compersion (the opposite of jealousy) […] And in the polyamorous structure, I was part of a polycule “, she explains. End of parenthesis.
Still, her current spouse (her husband, and the father of her children too) was therefore aware of this past experience.
Me, I have no problem being with the same person all my life, but if we fall in love with someone else, I want us to be able to arrange something around that reality.
Elise, 37 years old
Example ? “For me, having an emotion for someone else does not mean the end of the relationship. »
And where does this openness come from? “I don’t know,” said the young woman, shrugging her shoulders. I don’t like binary and sliced stuff. It’s always been obvious in my head that it’s not just serial monogamy. »
This is how one day, a few months before their wedding, she “lent” her lover to a friend. She recounts the adventure while laughing. “They wanted me to stay in the room,” she said smiling. Yes, it was really a bit strange. But no, she didn’t feel jealous. “Zero,” she insists. “And I’m happy to see that I carry within me the compersion. I would much rather this friend go to something safe, than go to any other dude. »
We’ll spare you the details, but her husband ended up developing a relationship with the girl in question for a few months. They also made a trip three with Élise. Results ? We won’t really know. “Fun,” she says simply. For her part, our interlocutor has experienced something with a longtime friend. “We were in a romantic relationship, she says, but I think I never kissed him. I don’t really like kissing! »
All of this ended when, in recent years, Élise became pregnant. Twice rather than once. Besides, no, she has not seen her libido drop with her pregnancies. On the contrary. ” Not me. »
We see that through all these stories, the young woman finally told us very little about her intimacy with her husband. ” Things are going well ! Really, really good, ”she replies, examples of female ejaculation in support. “I physically feel more and more things, and so does he! »
Admittedly, with their young children, spontaneity took a bit of the edge. And she’s not too sure she wants to relive polyamory either. “My enthusiasm is quickly tempered,” she notes. Even if I have an opening, I probably won’t go back there. »
Come to think of it, Élise finally sees herself as a “relational anarchist”: “it could also suit me,” she says, explaining these different concepts to us with a clear concern for clarity. “We adapt to what is there according to each person’s needs. And it fluctuates over time. »
Moral ? Yes, she’s open-minded, “but you don’t have to explore everything,” she insists. “It’s not cut with a knife: monogamists have long and wise relationships. And the others are great depraved! »
*Fictional first name, to protect his anonymity.