Lindy West would like you to believe she is perfectly happy in her throuple, living with her husband and another woman.
But she’s clearly coping.
The comedian’s new book is proof that she’s given into her husband’s sexual demand to go non-monogamous, and suffered a massive blow to her own confidence.
Her story is a reminder that polyamory can be the patriarchy disguised as progressivism — encouraging women to shrink themselves to stay in their partners’ lives.
West, 44, released her third book “Adult Braces,” on Tuesday, and shared her story of accepting that her husband, Aham, wanted to see other people.
“I was devastated,” she told the New York Times. “Our initial conversation was a lot of me crying and being like, I don’t want anyone else.”
This was not her vision of their future — “I thought we would probably have a baby and buy a house.”
Rather than mutually decide they wanted to open up their marriage, it was presented to West as an ultimatum.
She didn’t put her foot down and say no. Instead, she embarked on a begrudging journey to accept her husband’s new girlfriend, out of fear of losing him.
Men are twice as likely to say they are polyamorous or want to be. And some women like West are capitulating to their demands, convincing themselves that opening their relationship is the adventurous, progressive thing to do, when it’s actually spiritually harmful to them.
The life West now leads — as a member of a throuple of her husband’s fantasies — actually doesn’t sound empowering at all. West admits the presence of another, smaller woman in her relationship made her feel inadequate and insecure.
It also left her sidelined in her own home, treated like an extraneous character rather than an equal. “I love sleeping in the guest room and crawling into bed with them in the morning,” she claims. “I love when they tuck me in and leave me to play on my phone as late as I want.”
This is the sort of dynamic that “others” one woman, and puts her in an incredibly precarious spot. Who could blame West for worrying about being replaced in her own home?
However, the lifestyle is gaining popularity here in New York City, with ex-mayor Bill DeBlasio having relationships with various women — at least one of whom was married — while still married to his wife and mother of his children, Chirlane McCray.
The Post also spoke with one veteran of polyamory, Siouxsie Q, who experienced a version of West’s situation firsthand, when her ex-husband left her to start a family with the woman they both considered their girlfriend.
“The rose colored glasses are off,” Siouxsie, 40, of Los Angeles, said.
“The reason people don’t want to try polyamory is because they’re afraid that what happened to me will happen to them.”
But, despite the trauma, she’s still polyamorous, and married again, while dating other people.
“I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, and this is still the relationship model that works for me,” she said. “I was hanging out with a girlfriend last night; I live with my husband… I do live the life that I want to live. I’m in the type of commitment that feels right and good to me.”
But the key to an actually fulfilling polyamorous relationship, she says, is that everyone is on board, and nobody was coerced into the dynamic out of fear of abandonment.
“We all communicate like adults, we go to therapy, we care about each other,” she said. “If someone is coercing you or giving you an ultimatum around your relationship or your sexuality, go to therapy, and probably take some space from that person.”
“Consent is at the center of every single thing that I do. Coercion has no place in the bedroom, or in a healthy relationship,” she added.
Polyamory is extremely tricky to pull off without someone getting hurt. If it’s starting from a place of manipulation rather than mutual consent, as seems to be the case with West, then it might just be doomed from the start.
West’s husband pulled every string to talk her into it, even going as far as to manipulate her white guilt to get his way. “He believed that monogamy was, at its root, a system of ownership,” she writes. “I had to admit that perhaps I didn’t feel it as keenly, as a white person.”
Seriously?
Siouxsie says that, where women get hurt in polyamorous relationships, “heteronormative patriarchy is really the culprit.”
And she’s right. There’s nothing more patriarchal than a man acquiring women like collectibles, while holding onto a wife who is afraid he will leave her.
Perhaps some people like Siouxsie can pull off a healthy polyamorous dynamic. But, in West’s case, the situation seems poisoned at the very root. Her husband is far more concerned with creating a progressive harem, and completely unconcerned for her wellbeing in this dynamic of his design.
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