Decked out in sequins or fringe, miniskirts or strapless dresses, the women sip wine and nibble on mango chutney brochette while their husbands boast.

“Nobody sucks cock like my wife,” says one man, dapper in a pastel tie and shirt. His buddy cheerfully chimes in: “If you want to fuck my wife, you’ve got to have brains.”

It’s the grand opening this month of Ménage à Quatre, a 10,000-square-foot swingers club in the basement of a bank in Etobicoke. The entrance stairs are jammed with couples, mostly in their thirties and forties, lined up to fill out the membership forms. Inside there’s food, erotic art by local artists, comfy couches, a locker room and, deeper into the complex, lots of mattresses on the floor, all with fresh new linen, unsoiled by the group sex that will take place later.

Swing clubs and orgies were happening long before there were bowls to throw keys in. But in the days before a 2005 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, called R. vs Labaye,  which overturned charges against a Montreal swingers club, it would have been hard to imagine so many middle-class straight Ontarians gathered in a space so specifically tooled for exhibitionistic, orgiastic group sex. Before the ruling, sex clubs occupied a legal grey area in Canada; sexual acts in which more than two or three people participated — or sex acts that could be observed by others — might be considered indecent, thus transforming the premises where they were taking place into a “common bawdy house.” Running one of those could get you a couple of years in jail. So most swingers clubs rented venues, encouraged flirting and shooed their patrons home or to hotel rooms for the main course. But in the wake of Labaye, at least three of the new straight sex clubs in the GTA are “on-premise,” permitting and even encouraging sexual activity among patrons.

“We never wanted to hide,” says Aurora Benzion, co-owner of Wicked, a “hedonistic lifestyle” club that moved to a high-profile location on West Queen West just 10 months after the ruling. “We never thought we were doing anything wrong, but when the ruling came out, it put a stamp of legitimacy on it.”

Who knew the Supreme Court would turn the GTA into North America’s Amsterdam? “The ruling doesn’t eliminate the boundaries of what you can do, but it does shift them,” says Bruce Ryder, associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. “The court abandoned the old morally conservative and religious interpretation of indecency for one based on harm.... The court set the bar very high.” The question is: how high?

The rules are posted all around Goodhandy’s on Church Street, including “Women and T-girls are to be treated like goddesses” and “Ask before touching anybody.” There’s a free clothing check for patrons planning to go nude or in towels. On the dark dancefloor, a goth chick flogs a guy wearing leather chaps without pants — it could be said that pantlessness is the dress code at this once-a-month sex party. Pantlessness certainly makes oral sex more convenient and there’s lots of it happening, in all sorts of gender combinations, all around the second floor lounge and in the little booths at the back.

Goodhandy’s co-owner Todd Klinck remembers the day of the 2005 Supreme Court ruling precisely. “It was the week of Christmas. I saw it appear on the front page for one day and then it disappeared. I remember thinking it was a good thing that it disappeared from the headlines so quickly,” says Klinck, pointing out how little public outcry there has been. The club opened five months later. In addition to the straight/gay mixed sex parties, two nights a week are devoted to transsexual and transgendered girls and their admirers. One night is devoted to making gay porn in front of a live studio audience. There are parties for women, fetish nights and fundraisers galore.

In the early days, Klinck and business partner Mandy Goodhandy were conservative in their legal interpretations. Patrons bought memberships to access the cubicles and sex was restricted to them. The porn performers were taped in a closed room, with a live video feed projected onto a big screen in the bar.

“As we got a better understanding of the law, we changed some things,” says Klinck. The membership was replaced by posted written notices and verbal explanations. The porn shoots were moved to the main space. Depending on the night, sex and nudity are permitted throughout the club.

“The gay community is not into booths. They’re more interested in things being wide open,” says Klinck. And besides, gay men already have bathhouses. If Goodhandy’s wants to offer something new, it has to think outside the cubicle.
“There’s nothing we’re holding back on. It’s not like I wish we didn’t have a sign on the door. I’m not interested in having people who don’t like it here,” says Klinck.Goodhandy’s might be the wildest place in the village, but it’s not the only one to take advantage of the new legal climate. In the mid-1990s, Toronto police shut down the dark back rooms in the city’s gay bars. Since the ruling, at least three gay bars have re-opened their back rooms. Signs are supposed to warn off the shockable or the naïve.

Of course, the Supreme Court doesn’t write how-tos. It describes the facts of a case, cites other decisions and then gives a legal analysis. In Labaye, the swingers club was members-only. Members were interviewed and told about the club’s activities. There was a doorman. The club was on three floors. The orgy area was accessible only with a special code. There was no prostitution.

It is unclear which of the facts can change or disappear before a sexual situation would be seen as causing harm in the eyes of the court. The police don’t seem to have a checklist. “There’s no specific training or policy on that decision, but the training of officers, which is constant and ongoing, is informed by a variety of information which includes court decisions,” says Mark Pugash, unit commander of public information at Toronto Police Services. And police seem to be giving the ruling a wide berth. None of the club owners I talked to reported any police problems. Ryder has found only two notable appeals-court cases that cite Labaye (one in 2007 ruled in favour of a massage parlour that included happy endings in its prices; the other, this year, ruled against a man who exposed himself to a prostitute in a school parking lot), a good indication that not many indecency cases are making it to court. Whether buzz codes or membership lists are indispensable components of avoiding harm is still untested.

Back in swingerville, nobody’s concerned about pushing the envelope. Here, the main complaint is that the ruling has attracted too many people who aren’t committed to “the lifestyle.” Sport-fucking seems to have overtaken the courtship involved in wife swapping. The erotic air of transgression is gone. “If you’re going to a party designed to take your clothes of and have sex, it’s not exciting anymore,” says Ruthie Muller, a long-time swinger-party host. “When you can’t do something you know you want to try it. But when it’s all OK, there’s no excitement... You can do it any time.” EMAIL LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM