Progressivism Destroys Its Most Loyal Servants
Lindy West thought polyamory was less oppressive than monogamy. It ruined her.
By Louise Perry
Lindy West is the voice of a certain kind of millennial feminism. She made her name at Jezebel, an online feminist magazine, and went on to write columns for the Guardian and the New York Times. She writes mostly about herself, particularly her experiences of being “fat,” a word she reclaims in defiance of societal “fatphobia.”
I disagree with Ms. West on many things, but she makes some good points. She’s right that fat people aren’t obliged to hate themselves. She’s also right to object loudly and wittily to male chauvinism, as in a viral piece she once wrote for the Stranger that likened the Hooters restaurant chain to “a misogyny theme park.”
So I was saddened to read her latest memoir, “Adult Braces.” The cover image is an illustration of Ms. West with mascara-stained tears running down her face, an odd choice for a book in which the author insists over and over again that she’s happy.
Now in her 40s, Ms. West has done everything that the progressive political project told her to. She still refuses to lose weight, rejecting her doctor’s offer of GLP-1 medication, despite the suffering caused by her obesity. She stamps on any sign of conservative thinking, in herself and others. She’s made activism her identity and refuses to engage with people outside her political subculture. She even avoids spending time with her extended family because they have “unknown politics.” It isn’t that they actually disagree with her, it’s that they might.
Ms. West’s previous memoir included a Pacific Northwest version of a fairytale ending, with our heroine marrying Ahamefule J. Oluo, a musician and artist who nowadays identifies as nonbinary. “My wedding was perfect,” ran the headline to Ms. West’s Guardian column in 2015, “and I was fat as hell the whole time.”
In “Adult Braces,” we learn that the reality of this relationship wasn’t perfect. Ms. West and Mr. Oluo were at odds from the outset, particularly on his insistence that he be permitted to sleep around—or to use the vocabulary of their subculture, be “a polyamorous person.” Their marriage has been accompanied by a lot of crying, panic attacks and endless therapy.
Ms. West is desperate to defend her husband, as well as the girlfriend they now share, the creative producer Roya Amirsoleymani. After Ms. West acceded to Mr. Oluo’s demand for nonmonogamy, the “throuple” now live together in a rural cabin belonging to Ms. West’s family. She writes of retreating to the guest bedroom during frequent bouts of depression and being subjected to the sound of her husband and Ms. Amirsoleymani having sex in an adjacent room. Ms. West reports that she wrote this memoir to provide financial support to her “family,” three able-bodied adults in their 40s who seem to spend most of the working week emotionally terrorizing each other.
The book so far seems to be enjoying commercial success, but the public response has been overwhelmingly negative. Most reviewers have concluded that Mr. Oluo is a bad dude, a conclusion reinforced by his recent email to Scaachi Koul, a journalist who wrote a sympathetic profile of his wife in Slate. Angered by a perceived slight against his own status as an artist, Mr. Oluo unleashed a foul-mouthed diatribe, accusing Ms. Koul of being “bitter” and “untalented.” It seems that Ms. West’s literary representation of her husband left out a lot of his nastiness.
How does a funny, intelligent, affable woman end up in such a mess? “Adult Braces” provides us with some clues. We read of a life in which Ms. West constantly tacks toward the most progressive possible choice, regardless of whether it is the right choice for her.
Ms. West’s book brings the nature of progressivism into sharp focus. The ideology emerged in the 1960s as an explicit rejection of the ideas of the political mainstream. Progressivism is not for anything. Rather, it is against a whole lot of things—Judeo-Christianity, monogamous marriage, the nuclear family, capitalism, gender norms, racial stereotypes and more. Whatever the white American patriarch of the 1950s supported, progressivism opposes. It’s an exercise in patricide.
In the 1960s, counterculturists popularized the idea of “The Man,” a patriarchal authority figure against whom one should rebel. When you start from the assumption that “The Man” is always wrong, your political project produces all sorts of strange ideas, as in the case of Ms. West. If “The Man” says that slimness is healthy and beautiful, then it’s good to be fat. If he says that traditional gender roles are best, then it’s good to be nonbinary or transgender. If he says that you should have a job and a nice suburban home, then it’s good to live in a cabin in the woods and be poor.
And if “The Man” says that monogamy is the only proper relationship model, it’s good to be polyamorous. When Ms. West’s husband—who is half Nigerian—tells her that monogamy is “at its root, a system of ownership,” Ms. West is so consumed by white guilt that she forces herself to accept that Mr. Oluo’s desire to have sex with other women is some kind of expression of racial justice. Since “The Man” is always wrong, poor Lindy West must embrace whatever “The Man” rejects.
It’s possible to be a centrist on these questions. You can concede that 1950s America got some things wrong and also recognize that structuring your life around the rejection of some imagined political “other” is a terrible idea. Lindy West has given everything she has to her ideology. Anyone who has read her book can tell that the problem is not “The Man,” but one man in particular.
Ms. Perry is a Free Expression columnist at WSJ Opinion.
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The more progressive one is, the more impossible it must be to be happy. You're rejecting every form of enjoyment human instincts have developed over the millennia, and all that remains is religious devotion to a contrarian ideology. A feeling of moral superiority can only get you so far.
I feel so bad, and yet have very little patience for, people who reject traditions simply on principle. I can't imagine how many women at this point have spent the best years of their lives rejecting housewifery, marital sex, certain hobbies, and the basic pursuit of happiness in the name of progressive theology.
What a horrible feeling it must be, to someday wake up and realize you've wasted your 30s and your 40s in service of ideas that literally kept you from being happy.
I mean... life isn't that complicated. You take good care of your health, you find one person to mate with, and you build a simple life. Anyone who tells you those things are wrong is trying to sell you something. We've done them for millennia because they produce happiness.