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8 min read<\/p>\n8 min read<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago, Lindy West published her second memoir, Adult Braces, and all hell broke loose on the Internet. West is a writer best known for her essay collection Shrill, a book about personal reckoning and the turbulence and humanity of living as a fat woman writer in America. Shrill was a cultural phenomenon. It birthed a Hulu limited series of the same name and turned Lindy West into one of the most recognizable writers of the 2010s\u2014a millennial woman who wrote about feminism and the politics of work and desirability, a Glennon Doyle for those of us who eat carbs. At the end of Shrill, West points to her fairy-tale marriage to a conventionally attractive, skinny man as evidence of that desirability. Adult Braces reveals West\u2019s marriage was far from a happy ending. We find out that the beautiful public proposal presented as a political act in Shrill happened while West was still grieving her father and on the condition that she accept an open relationship. If not? He was gone. <\/p>\n
Adult Braces, her newest book, about her interracial marriage\u2019s rocky road to polyamory and the road trip she took to come to terms with it all, was met with an outsize reaction. She\u2019s become a lightning rod for cultural reactionaries, antifeminists, feminists who feel let down, and even other non-monogamists. But the discourse ignores the politics of this book and the expectations of female polyamory in the greater cultural imagination. <\/p>\n
When people have negative reactions to polyamorous relationships like those in Adult Braces, it\u2019s understandable. If you\u2019ve had any experience with an open relationship, it was probably bad. Polyamory becoming more mainstream and men learning terms like \u201cethical non-monogamy\u201d means more people who don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing. There are people who get into open relationships for the wrong reasons, which then get projected onto all poly people. Polyamory can be a requirement to save a marriage. It can start from a scarcity mindset that leads one partner to believe that this is the only option. Non-monogamy can start because one partner likes the attention or sex. They might get off on the idea that being polyamorous makes them \u201cmore evolved\u201d or progressive than others. Unfortunately, in the tale that Lindy West tells, it\u2019s all of the above. Adult Braces is a sightseeing guide for polyamorous red flags. <\/p>\n
Ethical non-monogamy does not make you more progressive.<\/p>\n
In a passage that has garnered the most attention online, Ahamefule Oluo (Aham), West\u2019s husband, presents the open-marriage ultimatum. Oluo basically says monogamy is racist and a form of ownership. West doesn\u2019t really get it but figures it\u2019s because she\u2019s white and codependent. She agrees to open things up. He immediately breaks every rule she sets forth. (Oluo has since begun using they\/them pronouns but at the time of the book\u2019s publishing still used he\/him, so I will use those pronouns throughout.) He lies and finds a way to cheat with two women despite their arrangement. West goes on a road trip to figure out who she is and what her boundaries really are in order to deal with it. During this journey of self-discovery, West finds she is willing to maintain the relationship on her huband\u2019s terms. If others could do the same, Adult Braces suggests, maybe the world wouldn\u2019t be so closed-minded. <\/p>\n
What Adult Braces does not seem to understand is that ethical non-monogamy does not make you more progressive, and it definitely doesn\u2019t do so when your husband isn\u2019t ethical about it at all. If she saw a relationship like hers but they were all wearing Trump shirts, would she be disgusted that those women could probably offer her some advice on sharing a man? If Adult Braces were to accept that racists are in fact open-minded enough to have threesomes and that this has not changed the world, then West and Oluo\u2019s open relationship might not be doing anything special either.<\/p>\n
Later, there\u2019s a chapter where West buys honey from a man named Fat Daddy at a roadside stand. They talk a bit, and he explains that he makes it himself but that he doesn\u2019t have a huge operation. Then West notices that he and his friend are wearing Second Amendment hats. She assumes they must be conservatives. As she drives away, she laments that she\u2019s probably funding pro-life honey. She wonders why people like Fat Daddy can\u2019t just dedicate themselves to their pure hobbies, like honey, instead of hate. \u201cWhat if he uses my ten dollars to print a sign to go harass people at the clinic? This is what I don\u2019t get. Sir, why don\u2019t you just, like, live your life being a nice bee man?\u201d West writes. But the story feels out of touch. Today a Fat Daddy in Wyoming could easily be a nice bee gay libertarian in a polycule. Remember, the Tiger King was polyamorous. It\u2019s not limited to progressive bubbles. <\/p>\n
Later in the book, West begins dating Roya Amirsoleymani, her husband\u2019s girlfriend\u2014not because they have things in common or have difficult conversations but because Amirsoleymani thinks West is cute. West really wants us to know this, by the way: Amirsoleymani is hot and Goth and skinny, and a hot skinny person having a crush on her is the ultimate \u201cI told you so,\u201d Adult Braces implies. Those are the only real details we get about Amirsoleymani. In the book, she feels like an extension of both West and Oluo\u2019s egos. West celebrates her for bringing peace to their household. Amirsoleymani sends supportive texts. She helps with bills, dishes, and scheduling and maintains the Google Calendar. She tells West what\u2019s going on with Oluo because he never keeps her in the loop. Late in the book, when West reveals that Oluo has been cheating on both her and Amirsoleymani with a third woman, a neighbor, we never find out whether Amirsoleymani had an issue with his infidelity or lies. She is clearly a fan of West\u2019s, and that\u2019s enough for West to be into it. <\/p>\n
Even women who come to polyamory under perfect conditions make mistakes.<\/p>\n
Wesr, Amirsoleymani, and Oluo have threesomes, but Amirsoleymani and Oluo mostly share a room. West likes it when they tuck her in and leave her to be on her phone, now that she\u2019s secure in being alone and her codependency is fixed. Remove the insistence that this relationship is revolutionary and this is a woman asking us to be happy for her because she happened to click with her husband\u2019s girlfriend and learned to be okay by herself. <\/p>\n
I want to make clear that Lindy West is not brainwashed. She is not stuck in a hostage situation. West wound up in an open relationship she was shocked to find she enjoys. She is a genuine polyamorous woman who is making her own decisions. The sticking point, perhaps, is the narrative around all of this. When I, as a reader, question West\u2019s relationship, it\u2019s not because I have an issue with polyamory. I question it for the same reasons West does throughout the book. Is this just a desperate attempt to keep her husband? Is dating his girlfriend just another way to stay close to him? Is she just being a people-pleaser? West asks these questions, but we never get answers. She decides she doesn\u2019t want answers. She can\u2019t give them to us anyway. How can she know how this will go? She cracks a joke instead.<\/p>\n
West writes, \u201cYou are predisposed to sympathize with me. This is my book, and you\u2019re reading it. Presumably, you like me.\u201d West wants the reader to meet her at this point in her journey; maybe the relationship won\u2019t work out, but she took a risk, pushed herself and isn\u2019t that beautiful. It\u2019s just difficult to meet her there. West has a habit of presenting the most romantic or idealized version of the narrative possible. West puts the dots on the page but doesn\u2019t want to connect them. How can we meet her where she is at when she can\u2019t seem to take it seriously?<\/p>\n
Adult Braces uses imagination to make its narrative seem like something bigger than it is. It wants to present its open marriage as an enlightening political endeavor for those involved. It wants to be the story of three people who found a perfect love in an imperfect way. But if you remove the politics and performance, it\u2019s about West\u2019s difficult journey to put her life back together around the person who tore it apart in the first place. If she were monogamous, it would be the story of a woman who stayed with a cheating husband. But West doesn\u2019t share the grit required to make these decisions; instead, you get fart jokes and a woman insisting her husband is worth it because he\u2019s hot, skinny, and brilliant and she\u2019s worthless. You\u2019d be concerned if someone said this is why she stayed in her monogamous marriage too. <\/p>\n
I have been polyamorous for 14 years now. Open relationships are nothing new, but most people aren\u2019t familiar with the confusing and detailed world of ethical non-monogamy. For example, I am solo poly. I have long-term, serious relationships, but I don\u2019t have a primary, I am always open to new partners, and everyone I date knows about each other. Some people say that\u2019s just being single. My long-term partner would probably disagree with that. Because some of you probably rolled your eyes the second you read \u201csolo poly,\u201d I won\u2019t get into a long-winded definition, but it essentially means I came to polyamory on my own terms. I didn\u2019t come to polyamory because of an ultimatum or a scarcity mindset. I didn\u2019t lack dating experience or options. And even with my \u201cbest-case scenario\u201d polyamory? I\u2019ve made the same mistakes West does in her book. Even women who come to polyamory under perfect conditions make mistakes and date assholes and have bad relationships. Welcome to the club! <\/p>\n
Successful poly relationships don\u2019t provide perfect politics, relationships, or an inherently interesting life. Acceptance from Big Polyamory will not open some third eye that allows you to rise above jealousy or a desire to be needed and loved. Polyamory does not make you a perfect partner. There\u2019s nothing that can change that fact. West\u2019s inclination to hide any fractures in her open marriage makes it feel like a performance, as though the primary motive is to inspire a reader she thinks needs a happy ending. Everything is perfect, and West just wishes she could keep her husband\u2019s pretty tiny Goth bird girlfriend forever. You guys never argue over how long someone takes in the shower? No pet peeves to provide a real-life edge to any of this? It\u2019s just threesomes and good times? <\/p>\n
If Oluo, West, and Amirsoleymani stay together for 100 years and her next book is about them arguing over what to eat for dinner, it is not evidence that polyamory is perfect. If they break up tomorrow and her next book is an unflinching look at the cracks in the load-bearing throuple that is her marriage, it doesn\u2019t mean polyamory is wrong. Hopefully West\u2019s future memoirs don\u2019t feel a need to turn the truth into something grandiose. Messing up is part of figuring it out. Polyamory doesn\u2019t owe anyone perfection; neither does Lindy West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"8 min read Two weeks ago, Lindy West published her second memoir, Adult Braces, and all hell broke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[213858,49,48,19953,126951,75,19952,213857,213859,714,107154,24552,3277],"class_list":["post-550135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-adult-braces","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-conservative","tag-democrat","tag-entertainment","tag-liberal","tag-lindy-west","tag-open-marriage","tag-politics","tag-polyamory","tag-republican","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}