Me, my husband, our girlfriend

Summary

Podcast Summary: Today, Explained — "Me, my husband, our girlfriend"

Date: March 27, 2026
Hosts: Noel King
Guests: Sachi Cole (Slate), Ashley Rae Harris (Harper's Bazaar), Helen Lewis (The Atlantic, quoted)

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Overview

This episode of Today, Explained dives into the public conversation swirling around feminist writer Lindy West’s new memoir, Adult Braces, and her journey into polyamory. The show unpacks the controversy, online reactions, and broader implications for feminism and alternative relationships, featuring commentary and analysis from cultural critics and journalists.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Who is Lindy West? [02:05–03:35]

• Background: Lindy West has been a vocal figure in Internet feminism (Jezebel, The Stranger), known for her writing on body image, gender, and social politics.
• New Book: Adult Braces is her fourth, and her most personal yet—detailing a cross-country road trip and the transition of her marriage to polyamory.

Adult Braces and Its Reception [03:39–05:28]

• Controversy: The uproar isn't about the road trip, but Lindy's embrace of polyamory.

• Legitimate vs. Illegitimate Critiques:

  • Some critiques focus unfairly on Lindy’s body or her husband’s gender identity (Aham, who uses he/him and they/them).
  • The core controversy: Did Lindy truly choose polyamory, or was she coerced?

  "Their entry into polyamory is not necessarily honest."
  — Sachi Cole [04:15]

• The "Coercive Polyamory" Debate:

  • Aham (her partner) communicated from the start that polyamory was a must for him.
  • Lindy initially participated reluctantly, but over time became involved with Roya, the third partner.

  "Aham loved me more than anyone else … 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 … rather than watch us decay and collapse later."
  — Lindy West [04:48]

The Roya Dynamic and Group Family [06:14–07:57]

• Initial Hostility: Lindy is hesitant with Roya at first.

  "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."
  — Lindy West [06:51]

• Evolution: Lindy's feelings shift as Roya becomes integrated, especially when Roya provides support during a family medical crisis.

• Outcome: The three now live together in the woods, describing themselves as a throuple.

Public Perception, Memoir as Commodity, and Intimacy vs. Performance [07:57–12:32]

• Media & Audience Reaction:

  • Lindy’s fans feel betrayed by her vulnerability and perceived suffering, expecting her usual confident persona.
  • There’s discomfort with the version of Lindy presented in Adult Braces: anxious, insecure, non-triumphant.
  • The press cycle and social media have intensified polarized responses.

  "I think people look at Lindy as a one-way mirror ... When she makes decisions ... they take it really personally."
  — Sachi Cole [09:24]

• Online Backlash: Many see Lindy's shift as a sign of "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."
  — Helen Lewis, The Atlantic [10:41]

• Counterpoint:

  "One person's personal story, discomfort, misery ... does not speak to the end of a social movement."
  — Sachi Cole [11:09]

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Polyamory, Stereotypes, and Lived Realities [16:15–21:08]

Why the Internet Hates Polyamory [16:15–18:02]

• Ashley Rae Harris explains: With dating apps, more people try polyamory—leading to "messy" stories and backlash.
• Broader definitions: Polyamory is misunderstood or conflated with polygamy and patriarchal arrangements (like on "Sister Wives").
• Umbrella Term: Ethical non-monogamy can mean many things—from solo polyamory to traditional throuples.

Personal Experience: Solo Polyamory [18:16–20:53]

• Ashley’s Story: She considers herself "solo poly," maintaining independent, non-hierarchical relationships.
• Debunking Myths:
  • Not all women are coerced into polyamory.
  • Polyamory doesn't make someone more "woke" or enlightened; it's just a relationship preference.

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The Lindy West Book: Politics, Race, and Performance [21:08–26:57]

The Challenge of Representation [21:08–22:47]

• Fans struggle with the abandonment of the fairytale narrative Lindy previously wrote (as in Shrill).
• In Adult Braces, Lindy attempts to portray an authentic evolution, but now appears to be selling a new happy ending—just with different terms.

The Political Layer [23:38–26:57]

• Memoir as Political Project:

  • Lindy maintains a progressive stance, sometimes conflating her relationship choices with political radicalism.

• Race & Monogamy:

  • Aham, a person of color, frames monogamy as colonial/patriarchal oppression.
  • Critics (including Ashley Rae) reject the notion that refusing to question such dynamics is truly progressive.

  "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 question that in themselves..."
  — Ashley Rae Harris [24:54]

• Reality Check:

  • Lindy frames non-monogamy as uniquely progressive, but polyamorous dynamics exist across the political spectrum.
  • Ultimately, relationship choices are personal, not inherently political acts.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On likability and gender:

  "Likability in a sexist racist culture is not objective. It's compulsory. Femininity, the gender binary, invisible labor, whiteness, smallness, sweetness."
  — Lindy West [02:22]

• On relationship ambiguity:

  "If you read the book and just sort of looked at it in a vacuum, you wouldn't have the same responses as if you read the book and then go on Reddit."
  — Sachi Cole [10:11]

• On alternative relationships:

  "It's something that you're comfortable with or not… It just means you're more comfortable with an alternative relationship dynamic."
  — Ashley Rae Harris [20:21]

• On the performative burden:

  "She has a burden to perform perfect polyamory in reading. Feels like most of the book is about her travels, coming to terms with this new stage of her marriage ... And I think that's why people are uncomfortable, because…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."
  — Ashley Rae Harris [23:12]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:05] — Introduction to Lindy West and Adult Braces
• [03:39] — The polyamory controversy and social reactions
• [04:48] — Lindy’s account of Aham’s perspective (quote)
• [06:51] — Lindy’s initial resistance to Roya (quote)
• [10:41] — Helen Lewis on millennial feminism’s contradictions
• [16:29] — Polyamory’s growing visibility and backlash
• [18:16] — Ashley Rae Harris defines solo polyamory
• [21:26] — Reflections on Lindy’s relationship narrative and fan expectations
• [23:38] — The intersection of polyamory, politics, and race

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Conclusion

The episode weaves together Lindy West’s personal memoir with broader debates about polyamory, identity, feminism, and online culture. Through the voices of critics and advocates, the show highlights how personal decisions become public battlegrounds, and why, for many, relationships are never just personal—they’re political, performative, and deeply scrutinized.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Noel King]

Everybody's talking.

[Helen Lewis]

So right now a lot of people

[Noel King]

are talking about, about Lindy west.

[Helen Lewis]

This woman, Lindy west, who calls herself a feminist author.

[Noel King]

I listened to the entire New York Times Modern Love podcast with Lindy west,

[Sachi Cole]

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.

[Noel King]

In a new memoir, adult Braces, the millennial feminist icon travels the country in a 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 why everyone you know is talking about polyamory.

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Today, everyone's talking about polyamory.

[Sachi Cole]

My name is Sachi Cole and I'm a senior [e-mail] 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.

[Lindy West]

Likability in a sexist racist culture is not objective. It's compulsory. Femininity, the gender binary, invisible labor, whiteness, smallness, sweetness.

[Sachi Cole]

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.

[Noel King]

Tell me about Adult Braces, which I read in one sitting this morning.

[Sachi Cole]

Yeah, I read it a few times in One sitting, actually.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

Good.

[Noel King]

It's really good.

[Sachi Cole]

It's a very digestible book. Yeah, it's really edible, I would say.

[Noel King]

Yeah.

[Sachi Cole]

Adult Braces is Lyndy's memoir. This is her fourth book. She's written a lot of 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.

[Noel King]

And this is the thing. It is not the road trip that people are upset about. It is the polyamory.

[Sachi Cole]

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.

[Noel King]

What? 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?

[Sachi Cole]

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 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.

[Lindy West]

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

[Sachi Cole]

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.

[Lindy West]

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.

[Sachi Cole]

And so she is a. She's clearly a reluctant participant for the first spell of their jaunt into polyamory. They meet someone, they, you know, 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.

[Noel King]

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. Well, that's not entirely fair to him.

[Sachi Cole]

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, I, I. Lyndy 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.

[Noel King]

Okay, then I want to bring the third into this, as the marriage did. This is Roya. So tell me about where Lyndy starts with Roya, where Lyndy ends with Roya, and why you think the ending has also made people uncomfortable.

[Sachi Cole]

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. I. 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.

[Lindy West]

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.

[Sachi Cole]

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 Auroyah 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, maybe,

[Noel King]

maybe it is the right wife.

[Sachi Cole]

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.

[Noel King]

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?

[Sachi Cole]

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 a perspective and a version 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, then it doesn't mean anything. It's a really crushing place to live. I think people look at Lyndy 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 Lyndy 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. And to compare that with the version that we read in adult braces, who is anxious and insecure and being harmed by this, 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 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.

[Noel King]

Lindy west being polyamorous isn't the issue. The issue is the story we're being sold about it.

[Sachi Cole]

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.

[Noel King]

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

[Helen Lewis]

What killed millennial feminism was the gap between what its high priestesses demanded and what they were able to endure themselves. If you ins insist that accepting polyamory is the price of being a good person and then write a book about your throuple where the front cover shows you with mascara streaked tears running down your face, people will spot the dissonance. Helen Lewis, the Atlantic

[Sachi Cole]

Listen, we can have feelings about anybody's relationship as it is displayed to us. That's entitled. We are entitled to that, especially when we're being offered a commodity like a book which you purchase. Opinion is a 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. 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.

[Noel King]

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

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[Noel King]

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[Ashley Rae Harris]

By my side A little bit of today explain all I need A little

[Noel King]

bit of 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 Bazaar. Why do people on the Internet hate polyamory so much?

[Ashley Rae Harris]

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.

[Sachi Cole]

Story time on how I got invited

[Noel King]

to be in a poly relationship and

[Sachi Cole]

all hell broke loose. Non ethical, non monogamy. That's what that is. Guys just say you want to be in an open relationship. Just say you want to be single and not committed.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

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 polygamous. 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.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

I'm not only looking for a wife

[Sachi Cole]

and queen to add to my kingdom,

[Sponsor/Announcer]

but Vanessa's looking for a best friend, someone to queen.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

But 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, ugh, not for me. I can never do that. All right, y'.

[Noel King]

All. So another reason as to why I hate polyamory.

[Sachi Cole]

Okay.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

I get exhausted dating one person and

[Helen Lewis]

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.

[Noel King]

Hmm. All right. So you said you are solo poly, Is that the right term?

[Ashley Rae Harris]

Yes, solo polyamorous.

[Noel King]

Solo polyamorous she says, as if it is Latin or something. What does that mean? What does that mean for your life?

[Ashley Rae Harris]

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 nonmonogamy. 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. 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 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 throuple, 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.

[Noel King]

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.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

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?

[Noel King]

Yeah.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

Different couples have different ideas of, 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.

[Noel King]

Yeah, 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 wanna ask you, you read it, what did you think about how Lindy and Aham negotiated a polyamorous relationship?

[Ashley Rae Harris]

Yeah, I, I, 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. 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. 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 throuple, it's, it's about nine pages. It's very short.

[Lindy West]

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.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

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, and I've 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.

[Noel King]

This in many ways, many more ways than I was expecting. This is a political book. This book has apolitics. Lindy west has apolitics. 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. 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? 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 poly. Is it in progressive circles, is it legit to say, no, we don't ask questions? No. Okay, okay.

[Sachi Cole]

Just check it.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

And I will also say polly and poor listeners. I'm also black.

[Noel King]

Yes.

[Ashley Rae Harris]

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 okay 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 responsibilities are split. So when she gives her husband a pass in the book, that to me was frustrating, where it's like, no, no, no, no. We have questions for this because that isn't valid. Lyndy, 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 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. Like, you know, in reality, like, she is projecting something that isn't really there when you go, but Lyndy 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 know, 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. 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.

[Noel King]

Ashley Rae Harris is a culture critic. She wrote about adult braces for Harper's Bazaar. Kelly Wessinger produced today's show. Julie Meyers edited. Patrick Boyd and David Tadashore are our engineers. And Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Check the facts. I'm Noel King. It's Today. Expl.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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