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Sex and the suburbs

Broadcast Date: Jan. 10, 1974

It's Saturday night in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, a suburb on the West Island of Montreal. For couples in this Quebec community, local dances are an escape from the doldrums of suburban life. At this dance in 1974, wife-swapping jokes and the subject of sex crop up after a few drinks. And for fun, couples avoid dancing with their own spouses. "It's our only chance to cuddle somebody else's husband," says one woman as she spins in the arms of another man.

Sex and the suburbs

• At the time of this clip, Dollard-des-Ormeaux was located west of the city of Montreal. The suburb is now officially a borough within Montreal's city limits, called Dollard-des-Ormeaux/Roxboro.

• In 1999, Maclean's reported that people living in suburban communities on the outskirts of big cities were healthier than people living in cities. The data, from Statistics Canada, was collected over three years.

• Another study reported that people living on the outskirts of cities used more resources than their big-city counterparts. In 2004 the study by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities said the average resident of York Region in Southern Ontario used 43 per cent more resources, such as fuel and water.

• Other Ontario regions guilty of overuse were: Halton, Peel and Waterloo.

• The 2001 Census reported that the population in the suburbs was aging more rapidly than in the cities. The shift was attributed to the children of immigrant suburban families moving to Canadian urban centres.

• In recent years, Dollard-des-Ormeaux's social development has been focused on a new community centre, an amphitheatre and an arts centre.

Sex and the suburbs

Medium: Television

Program: Take 60

Broadcast Date: Jan. 10, 1974

Guest(s): Eve St. Pierre

Host: Adrienne Clarkson, Paul Soles

Duration: 6:21

Last updated:
Oct. 10, 2008