Me, my husband, our girlfriend

Everybody's talking.

So right now, a lot of people are talking about Lindy West.

This woman Lindy West who calls herself a feminist author.

I listen to the entire New York Times modern love podcast with Lindy West all about how

she came to her poly-Amerist relationship.

Well, one of our strongest is lost to us now, Lindy West.

She has succumbed to patriarchy.

She is male-centered now.

In a new memoir, Adult Braces, the millennial feminist icon travels the country in a camper

van, which seems fun, drops in on friends who seem cool, texts her husband, who seems

fine, and comes to terms with a marriage that suddenly includes a third person.

Coming up on today, explain from Vox White, everyone you know is talking about polyamory.

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My name is Sachi Cole and I'm a senior writer at Slate dot com.

Who is Lindy West for those who don't know?

Lindy West is a writer.

She's an author.

She was one of the more kind of noisier voices of early to mid-Auts internet feminism.

Incability in a sexist racist culture is not objective.

It's compulsory femininity, the gender binary, invisible labor, whiteness, smallness, sweetness.

She was a writer for Jezebel, she wrote for the stranger for a really long time.

And she has a new book called Adult Braces, which came out a couple weeks ago.

Tell me about adult braces, which I read in one sitting this morning.

Yeah, I read it a few times in one sentence, it's a very digestible book, yeah, it's

really edible.

I would say.

Yeah.

Adult Braces is Lindy's memoir.

This is her fourth book.

She's written a lot of political polemic social polemics, a lot of personal writing, a lot

of memoir writing, but the system of her most personal.

And it's a memoir about her taking a cross-country road trip, but also about her kind of reformatting

her marriage and turning towards polyamory with her husband.

And this is the thing.

It is not the road trip that people are upset about.

It is the polyamory.

No, unsurprisingly, it is not just the driving around in a van that people are fixated on.

They sure have a lot of thoughts about the polyamory.

What about the polyamory?

What about the depiction of polyamory or the journey to polyamory?

What do you think has got people so upset here?

I think there's a few trains of controversy here.

And some is legitimate and some is really not.

So the illegitimate complaints kind of about this narrative have to do often with Lindy's

weight.

She's fat.

She writes a lot about being fat.

She writes about the politics and social politics of being fat.

Or some people are saying that it has a lot to do with gender.

Her partner, Aham, who's her husband in the book, and Aham goes by, he, him, and they,

them, is non-binary.

So there's been a lot of needless jabs at this particular facet of the story, which

I don't really think is about anything.

The other side of it is that the story that Lindy tells in this memoir, and all we really

have to go on is what she tells us, is pretty brutal to her.

Their entry into polyamory is not necessarily honest.

I told you, Aham was secretly seeing one woman in 2019.

He was actually seeing too.

It sounds like it was a lot of people have been using the word coercive polyamory.

I've been reading that a lot online, it's not a term I've ever heard before, but the

idea that you kind of tell your partner like, it's this or nothing.

Aham loved me more than anyone else he had ever met in his life.

I was the most special person in the world, and the first best friend he'd ever had.

But this was not negotiable.

He would not lie to me, or anyone else, about it.

And he was prepared to break his own heart now, rather than watch us decay and collapse

later.

So she is clearly a reluctant participant for the first spell of their jaunt into polyamory.

They meet someone, he falls in love with her first, and then she also falls in love with

this person, Roya, and now the three of them are together.

When we frame this as it was coercive, she was talked into it.

There's an opposite side of this that says, no Aham, her husband was honest with her right

from the beginning, and she sort of hoped that it would never come to pass, which maybe

I guess there's an argument that's not entirely fair to him.

Yeah, listen, my reading of it is a little more on that side.

It's clear that he told her a condition of our marriage will be polyamory.

I think she understood some of the risks.

She's an adult.

You know, Linda does not want to be infantilized.

She said that several times that she had and has autonomy, and these are her decisions.

I believe that they are her decisions.

Okay, then I want to bring the third into this as the marriage did.

This is Roya.

So tell me about where Lindy starts with Roya, where Lindy ends with Roya, and why you

think the ending has also made people uncomfortable.

Yeah, so when Roya is brought into the picture, it is true that Aham had more than one

other girlfriend in addition to his wife.

And so, you know, Lindy is a little, Haas does a big word, but I would say she was reticent

to kind of learn anything about this person and was sort of like, go do what you must.

I extended the bare minimum of grace.

I was prickly and miserable before he left and made him work for my smile after he got

back.

I wanted him to have a bad time and feel like he was doing something bad.

Aham starts to travel to Portland.

I think once a month to go spend a weekend with Roya.

So now he's kind of taking time away.

He has a big medical issue come up while she's touring and Roya is there to help.

And so that starts to change the nature of their dynamic.

You know, Lindy talks a lot about like, wow, is this what it's like to get a wife?

Like somebody so organized who takes care of like the medical details and like, listens

to me and it's like, mate, mate me, mate it is the right wife, it's the right wife,

yeah, perhaps.

And, you know, so over time they start to develop a friendship and then their relationship

turns and it becomes romantic.

And it fundamentally reshapes the entire nature of their polyamory and of their marriage

and of their family.

And then, you know, after that Roya, she moves into the woods with them and that's where

she is now.

All right.

So you went out to the place where the family lives now.

It's a cabin in Washington state.

You wrote a profile of Lindy West when you were there talking to her in Washington.

Did you push her at all on the question of coercion?

Did you say while I was reading this, I felt like he talked you into this and you did not

really want it?

Yeah.

I mean, she preempts that question.

I think it's something that people have already said to her.

So she's kind of like ready for that.

And, you know, she says that that's just not true.

And I kind of understand what she's saying, which is how can I prove it to you other than

living in this life?

But if you try to write anything to convince other people, especially when it comes to

memoir, it will feel dissatisfying.

And I know that intimately, like there's only so much I can do.

What I can offer is a perspective and aversion of events.

But as soon as I cross a threshold, which has happened certainly for myself too, into feeling

like I'm evangelizing for something and if you don't believe me about my own experience

that it doesn't mean anything, it's a really crushing place to live.

I think people look at Wendy as a one-way mirror in a lot of ways.

They see themselves in her.

And when she makes decisions, when anybody like that in that position, celebrity influence

her writer, creative, when they make decisions that their audience doesn't like, they take

it really personally.

And Lindy is someone who I think a lot of people, especially her fan base, have viewed

as bombastic and confident and, you know, body and fun.

And to compare that with the version that we read in adult races who is anxious and insecure

and being harmed by this person in her life.

And so as the audience, your proxy is her.

And you feel defensive of her.

But that squared with, I think the online response, their online response to the book,

the three of them and how they have reacted to press, I think has more people the wrong

way, even more so than just the book.

I want to talk about the Lindy West situation and the way that I think Aham's career and

security is play a major role in their relationship.

When the West being polyamorous isn't the issue, the issue is the story we're being sold

about it.

I think if you read the book and just sort of looked at it in a vacuum, you wouldn't have

the same responses if you read the book and then go on Reddit.

So I wonder what you think about this argument that Lindy West made in places like the Atlantic,

for example.

And I'm sure, although I haven't checked in the free press, that Lindy West book about

that Lindy West memoir about coming to polyamory is like the death of millennial feminism.

What killed millennial feminism was the gap between what its high priestesses demanded

and what they were able to endure themselves.

If you insist that accepting polyamory is the price of being a good person, and then

write a book about your thrupple where the front cover shows you with mascara-streaked tears

running down your face, people will spot the dissonance.

Helen Lewis, the Atlantic.

Well, listen, we can have feelings about anybody's relationship as it is displayed to us.

That's untitled.

We're entitled to that, especially when we're being offered a commodity, like a book, which

you purchase.

Opinion is inevitable.

But one person's personal story, discomfort, misery, contentment, fulfillment, or lack

of fulfillment does not speak to the end of a social movement that was knit together

over several decades and has more to do with Lindy West's corner of the internet.

Social movements flex, they change.

I don't think it's the death of anything.

It is just where that version of it may be ended up.

I think there are limitations to everything.

We saw limitations of millennial feminism as it was happening.

We were talking about it in the moment about the wing and Jezebel and what it means for

white feminists versus black feminists and then even intersectionality beyond that about

TERFs who have come out of the woodwork on this one.

I'll say that, boy, did they have nothing better to do?

Everybody needs to talk to God and drink a good glass of whole milk and sit in a hot

place for a little while.

That was Slate's Sachi Cool.

Coming up, what if Polyamory is just another way to live?

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Slash Today Explained.

Today Explained.

We're back with Ashley Ray Harris, she's a culture critic, TV writer, Angelino, Ashley

wrote about Lindy West's book and entanglements for Harper's Bizarre, why do people on the

internet hate polyamory so much?

I think in recent years with dating apps, polyamory has also expanded, there are specific

apps for ethical nominogamy people, so more people have been trying it and that means

more messy experiences.

Story time on how I got invited to be in a poly relationship in all hell broke.

Non-ethical non-monogamy, that's what that is guys.

Say you want to be in an open relationship, just say you want to be single and not committed.

So I think more people dislike it now because maybe they in their 20's dated some guy

who said he was ethical but lied and that becomes someone's projection of all polyamory.

I think people also understand it is a very big definition and it does include polygamous,

you know, that is ethical nominogamy and so people look at shows like sister wives or

seeking sister wives and some of the very male-centered dynamics there and think that is all

of polyamory.

I'm not only looking for a wife and queen to add to my kingdom, but Vanessa is looking

for best friends.

But in reality it is a very big umbrella ethical nominogamy and underneath it, there are

solo poly people like me, there are sister wives, there are people who are basically

non-monogamously married but maybe they swing together so it really does look like so many

different things but for most of history and time people either roll their eyes because

they are so annoyed with it or they kind of just go, ugh, not for me, I could never do

that.

Alright y'all, so another reason is to why I hate polyamory, okay?

I get exhausted dating one person and trying to carve out time for my kids' needs and my

own self-care, how does adding another person get managed?

I don't get that.

Hmm, alright, so you said you are solo poly?

Is that the right term?

Yes, solo polyamorous, solo polyamorous.

She says that if it is flat or something, what does that mean for your life?

Yeah, so for me I came to polyamory on my own, I had been in relationships, I had been

engaged, but I had always kind of had a curiosity about nominogamy.

So a lot of people's issue with ethical nominogamy and women is that they think we're brainwashed

or coerced into it and there are no benefits we could possibly get from it.

And that's where Lindy's getting a lot of pushback, you know, a lot of people are saying

you're this big feminist voice, what do you mean you, you know, your, your husband has

a girlfriend and I totally think that's unfair, you know, I came to it without any sort

of male influence or man.

So a lot of people say that is the preferred, you know, method of women should come to it,

but to me it just means even when I'm single, I still seek multiple relationships.

I do have long term relationships, I have a partner of three years who knows that I seek

other partners who also seeks other partners, but essentially if someone were to say are

you single, I would go, yeah, so that's basically what solo polyamory is, is that it's sort

of I don't have a hierarchy of my partners, but they all know about each other, but I

am always open to kind of new connections and I prefer to live on my own, my dream isn't

to get married someday.

I don't want to share my house or bank account, whereas other poly people like Lindy's

thought bowl, they do want to live together, they do want that shared bank account, they

do want to, you know, create something that looks more like a nuclear family.

One of the things you see in the critiques of the book and also I imagine in the way

that some people listening will respond to you telling your story is that there is one

right way and one wrong way to do relationships and so this moment feels like it's a moment

where everybody gets to complain about relationships.

Yeah, yeah, so when I say like it is, it's something that you're comfortable with or not,

you know, that's all it really is.

It's a dynamic that you choose for a relationship if it's something you're comfortable with

and if it's not, you're monogamous, you know, it doesn't make you more enlightened, it

doesn't make you a more ethical person, it doesn't mean your third eye is open, it just

means you're more comfortable with an alternative relationship dynamic.

And you know, I think a lot of monogamous people would say monogamy doesn't look one

way, right?

Yeah.

Different couples have different ideas of, you know, if my partner likes someone's Instagram

pictures, for me, that's cheating.

Other couples are like, oh, I don't care if my partner flirts, you know, so I think

on both sides, it doesn't look like one thing.

Yeah, people are having a hard time with this.

I mean, the understanding, it's only March, but perhaps the understatement of the year is

that people are having a really hard time with this and so I want to ask you, you read it,

what did you think about how Lindy and Aham negotiated a polyamorous relationship?

Yeah, I also had a hard time with a lot of the book.

I don't think for the reason some people do.

If you read Shrill, if you were already a fan of Lindy's, she also believed in that fairy

tale ending and it is what she sold her fans.

Shrill ends with, you know, I found my perfect, hot husband.

He chose me.

I realized I'm worthy.

We had a beautiful public wedding that felt political.

It was an act.

It was defiance.

And we were happily ever after and I want my fans to know they can have that too.

In adult braces, she addresses the fact that she, that wasn't true.

That she was trying to paint a picture for us because she felt like she had to account

for an audience and now she's saying, I'm not trying to do that anymore.

I don't have to, but to an extent, she still is.

So I was uncomfortable because now it feels like she has a burden to perform perfect

polyamory.

When reading it, it feels like most of the book is about her travels coming to terms

with this new stage of her marriage.

And on that return, she accepts, you know, I am open to Roya and from the point of her

meeting Roya to, you know, them entering this thrupple, it's, it's about nine pages.

It's, it's very short.

I love to big spoon Roya and little spoon a ham.

I love sleeping in the guest room and crawling into bed with them in the morning.

I love when they tuck me in and leave me to play on my phone as late as I want.

I love being physically close to them.

I would keep Roya on my lap all day long if I could.

I would ride around on a homes back like a koala.

And it seems like she wants us to think, you know, this is a situation where everyone

is happy and everything is great and none of us are settling.

And I have just found a perfect love in a new way.

And I think that's why people are uncomfortable because, you know, they wanted her to have

this happy ending.

They believed in it as a fan and now she's selling them on a different happy ending.

This in many ways, many more ways than I was expecting.

This is a political book.

This book has a politics, Lindy West has a politics as she makes her way across the country.

She is quite dismissive to use a polite term about conservatives, including a point

of conservative child or a child with a Trump hat on.

And one thing that you sort of see happening or that I felt I saw happening was that Lindy

West is clearly somebody who identifies as progressive and her unwillingness to ask

hard questions seems in a sense political, right?

A ham tells her, I am not a white man.

And the project of monogamy seems quite colonial to me.

It seems old fashioned patriarchal, racist even.

So the reader, and I think a lot of conservative critiques of this book ended up someplace

like in progressive circles, if you're a white woman, you just don't question it when your

husband a man of color tells you that he wants to not be monogamous.

Or your poly, is it in progressive circles?

Is it legit to say no, we don't ask questions?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

Just check it.

And I will also say, poly and more listeners, I'm also black, and I have run into this argument

in circles of monogamy is akin to slavery, and no, people push back on that all the time.

As a black woman, I push back on that in certain dynamics.

I think it's absolutely okay for anyone to question that because monogamous people

have questioned that in themselves and their dynamics and how they show up for each other

and how responsibilities are split.

So when she gives her a husband a pass in the book, it's that to me was frustrating

where it's like, no, no, no, no, we have questions for this because that isn't valid.

Wendy, ask questions.

And like you said, throughout her trip, she is dismissive of these people, and she sort

of embraces a thought of, because I am doing this to break down the racism of monogamy,

I am a progressive, I am doing this to be embraced by progressives, that this is a political

act, that what she's doing is setting her on a different path in people who can't see

what she sees.

But in reality, like those conservatives she's running into in Florida are probably

swingers who are having more threesomes than her.

Like in reality, there are trailer parks in Arkansas with polycules, like in reality,

like she is projecting something that isn't really there when you go, but Lindy, the tiger

king was polyamorous, and I don't think he was more progressive.

But the second you rip that away from the relationship and go, no, you aren't really

doing anything to improve the politics of the world or bringing us together, you're

just, you know, it's your relationship.

It should be based on what you truly want, not how you feel, but, you know, your politics

should present to everyone else.

When you strip that away, then it's like, oh, we aren't really doing anything special.

The Ray Harris is a culture critic she wrote about adult braces for Harper's Bizarre.

Kelly Westinger produced today's show, Julie Meyers edited Patrick Boyden, David Tadashore,

our engineer and Andrea Lopez Cresado checked the facts.

I'm Noelle King.

It's today explained.