"'My Wedding Was Perfect — and I Was Fat as Hell the Whole Time,' said the headline of a 2015
column she wrote in The Guardian. But if the wedding was idyllic, West reveals in 'Adult Braces,' the marriage was not. Almost from the beginning, she writes, Aham conditioned their relationship on his being able to sleep with other women. She gave in because she was desperate to keep him, but his dalliances made her intolerably insecure. Because West lived in a left-wing milieu in which nonmonogamy is common, she felt an extra layer of shame over her inability to accept Aham’s extramarital sex life. ('At the time, being cool about polyamory felt like a growing imperative in progressive circles,' she writes.) Her anguish was exacerbated by an excruciating degree of bodily self-hatred, which, as she knows, contradicts the persona she’s built her career on. 'Do you think I have ever felt like I deserved to demand anything from men?' she asks.... [Aham] used her politics against her; West reports that Aham, who is half-Nigerian, 'believed that monogamy was, at its root, a system of ownership.'... [At the end of 'Adult Braces,' West writes] 'If you think I have been brainwashed and I am secretly miserable, I simply do not know what to tell you.'"
Writes Michelle Goldberg, in
"She Was a Famous Millennial Feminist. Her Polyamory Memoir Is Heartbreaking" (NYT).
Heartbreaking? Really? It's dangerous bullshit from West. I don't regard this as another occasion to summon up empathy.
(I've already blogged about the overuse of the word "heartbreaking," so go to
"Stop talking about my heart" for that.)
The commenters at Goldberg's column are not sympathetic to West:
• "This is repulsive. I had never heard of her before, but I have no desire to read about her infantilization, her controlling, cheating husband, or any of this garbage."
• "She is getting played by a guy who wants more than one woman. Nothing new here except her deluded progressivism that tells her it is cool."
• "Lindy West’s plaintive screed is not what we Boomer women fought for. And it sickens me to see everything we fought for either dead or on life support."
• "Women shouldn’t have to make themselves smaller for what passes as love."
• "The great irony is that she made a career on refusing to make herself small for others, then did so in her most intimate relationships. Perhaps worse, she refutes that dissonance."
Posts
58 comments:
In other news, water still running downhill.
Reading M. Goldberg repeatedly and expecting sense is .... you know the rest.
Goldberg is making sense!
The problem is West, and Goldberg elucidates why.
The NYT headline writer is obtuse.
You objected to the Goldberg headline word, "heartbreaking." You said no, it is dangerous bullshit, but attributed the latter to West. I can imagine Goldberg sympathizing deeply with West and the headline certainly states that. If you say Goldberg actually makes sense in the article I can't access, I will accept your statement but it would be a first in the history of the universe.
literally not small. figuratively very small.
appearance more important than reality.
“But West — or at least the version of West narrating “Adult Braces” — can’t see through Aham’s apparent manipulation. Instead, the book, which unfolds over the course of a long road trip, describes West learning to embrace polyamory and coming to love Aham’s girlfriend, Roya, with whom she’s now in a three-way partnership.”
All’s well.
Who could have seen that coming?
The woke left continues its inevitable implosion. This case was just a slow realization that an obese, confrontational, and angry woman always struggles to find a solid partner. Women can get ahead through (1) appearance and youth or (2) personality. If a woman has neither, then she has no bargaining chips.
Then, she's shocked for getting pushed out of the bed/attention by a thinner and more attractive woman. She's become a cash cow for the "throuple."
If you want to enact sustainable polygamy, look to a religious culture that's already done it (Utah; MIddle-East). Don't pretend that impulsive activism and virtue signalling is a relationship with the durable roots of a rigid religion.
I confess, up front, that I haven't done "the work" necessary to understand these people, simply because I can't see how it would be worth doing. With that disclaimer up front, I have to say that this seems to be an awful lot of attention paid to two very unappealing folks, so, no thank you, please.
Shorter version: Ugh!
She gave in because she was desperate to keep him
This is what you get when you don't "settle", i.e. partner with someone is actually roughly equivalent to your desirability. If you're a 5 or 6, the 8 using you for a booty call can do better, and knows it.
Of course monogamy is a system pf ownership. When we marry, we give ourselves to the other person. That's part of the beauty of marriage--we have found someone we trust enough to do that with. If either is not prepared to give themselves over, then the marriage will not go well. Wasted years and bitterness.
Just another example of leftism, especially feminism, ruining people's lives. I'll have empathy for her when she summons up the courage to stand up for herself. Until then, she's not worth it.
“ Because West lived in a left-wing milieu…”
Seems that conformity comes in all shapes and sizes.
Heartbreaking?? I'd say more like comedy gold. Hard to believe the lefty Beta males have actually come up with the perfect strategy, using feminists own asserted beliefs to justify their free range pass.
" [Aham] used her politics against her"
How is this different than expecting someone to live up to the ideals they say they believe in?
"Women shouldn’t have to make themselves smaller."
But in Lindy West's case, it couldn't hurt. The whole thing is a laugh riot and a major allegory to broader left wing delusion.
She's not just fat, she's roll her in flour fat. Hubby is beyond chubby ass swell. It is heartbreaking for her. She fell in love with a man and with an ideology and both of them broke her heart.
However, it's difficult to feel sympathy. In a way, she's like a four pack a day camel smoker who is shocked to learn that she has early onset COPD and several nodules of cancer growing inside her lungs.
This is the lady that popularized #ShoutYourAbortion, and now she is getting cucked. It couldn't happen to a nicer tub o' lard.
3/31/26, 8:32 AM
West reports that Aham, who is half-Nigerian,
Why are we told the scam-artist philandering husband is half-Nigerian. Racist much?
Even though she's overweight, in the photos at The Guardian article in the first link, she's better looking than he is. She doesn't have to settle for him.
Buck: "Doctor, you mentioned the ration of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?"
Dr. Strangelove: "Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature
Meth is a hell of a drug.
• "Lindy West’s plaintive screed is not what we Boomer women fought for. And it sickens me to see everything we fought for either dead or on life support."
@Althouse, this is perfectly true, and whether you accept it or not, you and Goldberg both played roles in making it happen.
You recently commented that communists were sexist. Good that you worked it out! Does this insight give you any additional insight into why the Progressives that so thoroughly dominate today’s Democrats might align themselves firmly with Islam — the most misogynistic major religion of the 21st century? And in turn does this provide you with a further insight as to why “intersectionality” actually hurts women and minorities?
Leftists finding out that their entire world view is the result of propaganda intended to make them stupid and willing sheep, will never not be funny.
What isn't funny is the fact that the commenters on the article will all vote for leftist candidates.
Planned infidelity. All's fair in lust and abortion.
The RAAT doctrine of feminine progress: keep women and girls reusable, affordable, available, and taxable. Gender equity and inclusion.
"...monogamy was, at its root, a system of ownership...:
Implies - nay, demands - an owner and ownee. Who then is which? Rather I think monogamy is at its roots a system of partnership.
Sounds like she reinvented the Patriarchy
It's better that she learned the club rules sooner than later. She's merely a bloc, a hole, a back... black hole... whore h/t NAACP in intersectional dignity and human Diversity.
Well, she got a best selling book out of it. Lots of attention too. Two columns on the same day in the NYT. For an attention seeker, this is very heaven.
Monogamy is a system of cooperation and fidelity of two equal and complementary partners dedicated to each other's quality and productivity in life.
It wouldn't be that Lindy West is a metaphor for the America that progressives would make this nation into (fat, neurotic, self-loathing) and that her "partners" would shore up that metaphor by playing the part of the "rest of the world"?
Well, would it?
Is it just me that sees this?
Understand, this is a business for this woman, whose name we would not otherwise know:
“Why Are So Many People Obsessed With Lindy West’s Polyamory?” – NYT
“Why people are having such strong reactions to Lindy West’s new memoir” – Vox
“I Profiled Lindy West After Her Marriage Memoir. Her Husband Didn’t Like It Much.” – Slate
And, it's not going away anytime soon:
“Progressives are embracing polyamory and making it political” – USA Today
As a percentage play, a monogamous marriage is the way to go. However, the percentages change considerably if you've got a hit record or a seven figure modeling contract......For children, though, a dull, monogamous marriage can't be beat.....The world would be a better place if everyone had a happy, monogamous marriage. and commuting would be so much easier if we had gossamer wings instead of mass transit.
On the other hand... #NoJudgment #NoLabels #PC
Has she ever entertained abortive ideation of selfie or others? Affirmative action?
Reading about the engagement. Lady got played like a cello. Nothing says ownership and control like a surprise public marriage proposal.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/21/my-wedding-perfect-fat-woman
Archived here: https://archive.ph/PTXYe
Difficult to sort through, miserable. It makes one wonder whether women, through history, have suffered being cucked more than men ('cuckqueaned').
One of the advantages of monogamy, especially in regard to child raising, is the blast radius is relatively small. If your village is filled with morons, then the number of damaged people "raised" there is vastly larger.
Yikes. I have never heard of these people (except Goldberg, who I only know of thanks to the Prof) and had to look her up. Yikes++.
I'm shallow that way.
Still, there are people who would rather be humiliated than ignored, otherwise we'd have a lot fewer popular entertainers.
Evidently if you are unhappy with something important in your life and you share it, it better not be written in a way that could make the party look bad. I’m using ‘the party’ as a catchall name for the ever growing number of interest groups that sometimes call themselves liberals. Empathy is apparently such a scarce resource that it cannot, it must not be wasted on an individual. In the words of Elaine, they don’t have a square to spare. The party comes first, second and last.
Tom Wolfe, in "The Great Relearning," had the left's counterculture figured out 50 years ago. He wrote about how they disregard the accumulated wisdom of human civilization to make up new rules, only to learn the hard way that those rules had a strong basis. (Chesterton also, with his fence.)
The hippies, as they became known, sought nothing less than to sweep aside all codes and restraints of the past and start out from zero. At one point Ken Kesey organized a pilgrimage to Stonehenge with the idea of returning to Anglo-Saxon civilization's point zero, which he figured was Stonehenge, and heading out all over again to do it better. Among the codes and restraints that people in the communes swept aside—quite purposely—were those that said you shouldn't use other people's toothbrushes or sleep on other people's mattresses without changing the sheets or, as was more likely, without using any sheets at all or that you and five other people shouldn't drink from the same bottle of Shasta or take tokes from the same cigarette. And now, in 1968, they were relearning . . . the laws of hygiene ... by getting the mange, the grunge, the itch, the twitch, the thrush, the scroff, the rot.
Rating appearance using numbers is demeaning and shallow. It’s not an objective assessment of attractiveness. Men who objectify women, including rating their appearance in numbers, suggests a link to higher levels of misogyny, sexual aggression, and poor mental health, such as increased levels of depression. It’s also a sign of social incompetence, insecurity, and inability to form deep, meaningful connections.
stunned said...
"Rating appearance using numbers is demeaning and shallow."
This is so true if we're talking about the 1 to 10 scale and the Matrix.
BMI is a much better measure.
“ if you say Goldberg actually makes sense in the article I can't access…”
She makes sense in the long excerpt that I gave you. She’s critical of West and it’s unlikely that she wrote the headline. I have a problem with the headline and have a problem with West. But I think Goldberg makes sense and that there’s plenty of quote to show that even if you can’t get through the paywall.
“She makes sense in the long excerpt that I gave you.”
She’s trying to make sense about nonsense, which doesn’t make sense.
Do you want to have a relationship with someone who is skinny yet superficial, mean and nasty or someone who has a few extra pounds but is smart, intelligent and kind?
Carl Benjamin has a more succinct and insightful analysis of Lindy West's self-inflicted Inferno. He doesn't quite put his finger on it, but the real take down was penned 235 years ago by Edmund Burke. The rules aren't a recent invention. They are the accumulated wisdom of the Ages. Long before Lindy West thought it would be fun to eat her weight in Twinkies every week and marry a man without respect for anything but his own pleasure, cavemen understood the economics of sex and the necessity of leaving a better generation in your wake. When morons ignore or contradict the rules, the result is chaos, suffering, and war.
NYT is a day late and a dollar short on the entire subject of progressive liberalism's absolute failure and collapse. No one believes that shit anymore, even in the corridors of governmental power. The last bastion of anti-civilization is academia. The great purge is coming.
---- She makes sense in the long excerpt that I gave you. She’s critical of West..... But I think Goldberg makes sense and that there’s plenty of quote to show that even if you can’t get through the paywall.
Thank you for this reply, AA. I read it all again. There is still so much crapola creeping in there that I can't see Goldberg anywhere in the field at this point. The notion that she can emerge from the muck and win this race and write a sensible column with insight is a 100-1 shot in my book. The fact that you think she did is interesting, very; but not dispositive. She will get herself blocked in somewhere behind other horses, she will bear out for the far rail of lunacy, she will rear up and leap the fence, her presumptions and biases will find a way to vitiate whatever stretch of logic she can briefly sustain..... there are so many ways to lose and only one or two to win. : ) It will happen somewhere. If she is alone in the stretch, she will get thrown before the finish line. I will take the book on your bet.
Men who objectify women, including rating their appearance in numbers, suggests a link to higher levels of misogyny, sexual aggression, and poor mental health, such as increased levels of depression. It’s also a sign of social incompetence, insecurity, and inability to form deep, meaningful connections.
Also, neuritis and neuralgia.
So her Husband wanted an open marriage, and she was OK with it. And then wasn't OK with it. And? So what.
Looks aside, fatso's need to lose weight because its unhealthy. "fat shaming" is good because its called "Morbidly obese" for a reason.
Obviously, from a Christian perspective her marriage was all wrong and violated God's will. But since none of the people are Christians, that's irrelevant.
Women getting marriage advice from the NYT's, reminds this comic video by Long Beach Griffy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZtXu-N3EhY
We wrote about West 13 years ago.
"West describes comedy clubs as “dark basements full of angry men.” This is sheer crackpottery and should make everyone who earns a living at standup comedy– waitstaff, club managers, comedians, owners, bookers, agents, managers– frightened and outraged."
The occasion was West losing a debate with Jim Norton. West was incoherent and largely spouted hateful words about standup comics.
tim : "Of course monogamy is a system pf ownership. When we marry, we give ourselves to the other person. "
Up to a point. To the extent that it's ownership, it is indeed mutual ownership, ie A owns B and B owns A. But ownership typically confers a package of rights. One is the right to exclude others from using what you own. This fits with marriage. A gets to exclude (everyone except B) from using B for reproductive purposes. But ownership also usually confers the right to use the item owned as you please. This doesn't fit with marriage quite so well. So it's more realistic to say that marriage confers some ownership-like features, most particularly - exclusion of others.
Since that is one of the main points of marriage - reproductive and sexual exclusivity - this impies that "open" marriages lack a fundamental feature of the concept, and can reasonably be regarded as an example of not-a-marriage.
She should have married a psychiatrist.
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