Me, my husband, our girlfriend

0:01Everybody's talking. So right now, a lot of people are talking about about Lindy West, this woman, Lindy West, who calls herself a feminist author. I listened to the entire New York Times Modern Love podcast with Lindy West all about how she came to her polyamorous 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.

0:42Coming up on today, explain from Vox why everyone you know is talking about polyamory.

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1:52helps you finish the rest. Bolts are tight. Now your plans are fine. Run a smoother business when you're on the line. Do that with Acrobat. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat. Everyone's talking about polyamory. My name is Sachi Cole and I'm a senior writer at Slate.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-aughts internet feminism. Likeability in a sexist, racist culture is not objective. It's compulsory femininity, the gender binary, invisible labor, whiteness, smallness, sweetness.

2:36She 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 of weeks ago. Tell me about Adult Braces, which I read in one sitting this morning. Yeah, I read it a few times in one scene. It's good. It's really good. It's a very digestible book. Yeah, it's really edible, I would say. Adult Braces is Lindy's memoir. This is her fourth book. She's written a lot of, you know, political polemics, social polemics, a lot of personal writing, a lot of memoir writing, but this is some 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.

3:20And 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.

3:59She 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 this, you know, 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.

4:39He was actually seeing two. 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. And so she's clearly a reluctant participant for the first spell of their jaunt into polyamory.

5:23They 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.

6:05She's an adult. You know, Lindy 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 Roy 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, hostile is 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.

6:55I 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.

7:36And it's like, maybe. Maybe it is. The right wife. 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?

8:17Did 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 a version of events.

8:53But 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, then it doesn't mean anything. It's a really crushing place to live. I think people look at Lindy 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, influencer, 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, bawdy and fun.

9:35And to compare that with the version that we read in Adult Braces, who is anxious and insecure and being harmed by this person in her life. and so is 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 rubbed 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 insecurities play a major role in their relationship. Lindy West being polyamorous isn't the issue.

10:14The 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 and made in places like The Atlantic, for example. And I'm sure, although I haven't checked in the free press, that Lindy West's book about.

10:40That Lindy West's 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 thruple where the front cover shows you with mascara-streaked tears running down your face, people will spot the dissonance. Helen Lewis, The Atlantic.

11:14Listen, we can have feelings about anybody's relationship as it is displayed to us. We are 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 maybe ended up. I think there are limitations to everything.

11:58We saw limitations of millennial feminism as it was happening. We were talking about it in the moment about the wing and Jezebel and, you know, 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.

12:37That was Slate's Saatchi Cool. Coming up, what if polyamory is just another way to live?

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16:21We're back with Ashley Rae Harris. She's a culture critic, TV writer, Angeleno. Ashley wrote about Lindy West's book and entanglements for Harper's Bazaar. 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 non-monogamy 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 and all hell broke loose. Non-ethical, non-monogamy. That's what that is, guys. Just say you want to be in an open relationship.

17:01Just say you want to be single and not committed. So I think more people dislike it now because maybe they, in their 20s, 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 polygamists. You know, that is ethical non-monogamy. 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 a best friend.

17:38But in reality, it is a very big umbrella, ethical non-monogamy, and underneath it, there are solo poly people like me. There are sister wives. There are people who are basically 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, uh, not for me. I can never do that. All right, y 'all. So another reason as 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.

18:17How does adding another person get managed? I don't get that. Hmm. All right. So you said you are solo poly? Is that the right term? Yes. Solo polyamorous. Solo polyamorous. She says as if it is Latin or something. What does that mean? 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 non-monogamy. So a lot of people's issue with ethical non-monogamy in women is that they think we're brainwashed or coerced into it. And there are no benefits we could possibly get from it.

18:56And that's where Lindy is getting a lot of pushback. A lot of people are saying, you're this big feminist voice. What do you mean your husband has a girlfriend? And I totally think that's unfair. I came to it without any sort of male influence or man. So a lot of people say that is the preferred method. A woman 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 a bank account whereas other poly people like Lindy's thruple they do want to live together they do want that shared bank account.

19:59They 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'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.

20:38And 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.

21:13Yeah, people are having a hard time with this. I mean, the understatement, it's only March, but perhaps the understatement of the year is that people are having a really hard time with this book. 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 fairytale ending and it is what she sold her fans. Shrill ends with, you know, I found my perfect hot husband.

21:53He 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. And 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. In reading it, it feels like most of the book is about her travels coming to terms with this new stage of her marriage.

22:39And on that return, she accepts, you know, I am open to Roya, and from the point of her meeting Roya to them entering this throuple, it's about nine pages. It's very short. I love to big spoon Roya and little spoon Aham. 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 hom's 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've just found a perfect love in a new way.

23:30And 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 at one point a 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.

24:09And her unwillingness to ask hard questions seems, in a sense, political, right? Aham 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. You're Polly. Is it in progressive circles? Is it legit to say, no, we don't ask questions? No. Okay. Okay. Just check it.

24:55And I will also say, Polly, and for listeners, I'm also black. And I have run into this argument in circles of monogamy is, you know, 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 OK for anyone to question that because monogamous people question that in themselves and their dynamics and how they show up for each other and how, you know, responsibilities are split. it. So when she gives, you know, her husband a pass in the book, it's it's that to me was frustrating where it's like, no, no, no, no.

25:34We have questions for this because that isn't valid. Lindy, like 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'm 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 than 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.