There Are No Girls on the Internet - Lindy West Told Us Everything in Adult Braces. Was It a Mistake?

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Remember the personal essay industrial complex? The 2010s era of Jezebel and xoJane where feminist writers put every raw, messy, private part of themselves on the internet? Lindy West was its brightest star. Her new memoir, Adult Braces, reckons with what that cost her, and with a marriage that turned out to be more complicated than the happy ending she sold us in her first memoir, Shrill.  Her book sent the internet into a spiral, enraged conservatives, disappointed some feminists, divided the polyamory community, and inspired her husband to send a very intense email to a Slate writer. Writer and comedian Ashley Ray joins Bridget to talk about the book, the discourse, and what all of it says about feminist writing, parasocial fandom, and whether the personal essay industrial complex of the 2010s has run its course. Ashley’s Harper’s piece - Lindy West and the Trap of Perfect Polyamory: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a70801519/lindy-west-adult-braces/   Scaachi’s Slate piece - Lindy West’s How-Not-To Guide to Polyamory: https://slate.com/life/2026/03/lindy-west-polyamory-open-marriage-husband-roya.html   She Had a Cat Hair Ball in Her Vagina — or Did She? https://www.thecut.com/2015/09/she-had-cat-hair-in-her-vagina-or-did-she.html      Check out Ashley’s Substack Deep Trouble: https://www.deeptrouble.net/    Let us know what you think by emailing [e-mail] or leaving a comment on Spotify.    Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com !    Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. You might know Lindy West from the Internet. She's the author of Shrill, the hit 2016 memoir about being a fat woman in America that became a cultural phenomenon, a Hulu series, and one of the defining feminist books of the decade. Shrill ended on a really happy note for Lindy, Lindy finding her voice and meeting and marrying Aham, the love of her life. Lindy's newest book, Adult Braces, picks up where Shrill left off, and it turns out that Shrill's happy ending was a little bit more complicated than previously advertised. Adult Braces reveals that her husband, Aham, presented Lindy with an ultimatum.

Their marriage needed to be open, or he was gone. So Lindy goes on a road trip across America and ultimately decides to stay married and embrace polyamory. She now lives in her family cabin with her husband and one of his previously secret girlfriends named Roya. After a viral New York Times modern love interview, Lindy's marriage became something of a lightning rod for a lot of different people, conservatives, feminists, people inside the Polly community,

and for a lot of folks who came of age reading feminist confessional writing on the internet and the 2010s, which, if you're listening to this podcast, might be you. And when a hum sent an email to a slate writer who had given his wife a perfectly fair review, everything got even louder. I talked to writer and comedian Ashley Ray. Ashley wrote a piece for Harper's about the book called Lindy West and the Trap of Perfect Polyamory. Ashley has been Polly for 14 years.

We talked about the book, the discourse, and what all of it says about feminist writing, parisocial fandom, and whether the personal essay industrial complex of the 2010s has finally run its course. Ashley Ray of the Substack Deep Trouble, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm such a fan of the pod. I'm so happy to be back.

I want to say up top, this might be a little bit of a different episode. Usually when I have somebody with expertise like yourself, I'm like interviewing them about something to get their thoughts on something. Really, I have been reading about the Lindy West book for the last week. I've been listening to podcasts about it,

reading articles about it. And I'm just to the point where my friends are like, find someone else to talk about this with. And I just want to talk about it. on the podcast and that's why you're here. Yeah, same. My, even like my 72 year old mom, I've just been like, look, you don't know Lindy West. And she's just like, is this girl your friend?

And I'm like, no, no, she just wrote a book, but you need to hear every detail. It's interesting how the book, Lindy, the relationship has taken over the internet. Every platform, threads, Twitter, blue sky, everyone is talking about it. I don't think substack, obviously. I don't think I've seen just sort of like a monoculture moment like this around a book in a long time. So I think that's part of what's exciting about this is that, you know, as literary people, we love some lit drama and it's full of it. You know, her husband's sister is also a famous writer. They're in communication with all these other writers.

It went from just being a book to like her husband sending emails to another very gifted author. And it just became like a huge thing that has spiraled out of control. And now there are people saying that this is a signal that millennial feminism is dead. Other people who are like, it's the end of white feminism. It's just become such a thing that means so much to so many people. And at the center of it, it's like, it's just a book about a woman finding something she didn't think she'd like. And realizing she kind of liked it. And also she's very honest about it not being perfect in some ways,

but then there are these frustrating ways where she still sort of pushes herself and life in the narrative as happy and very progressive and as, you know, basically a happy ending and a got you moment for the trolls and haters to say, you know, you might think I don't deserve this happy ending and this is me settling, but it's not. And then it's also her trying to, to placate fans because she came up at this like 2010 writer era where, you know, you were a writer and a hero to your fans and readers. They felt like you owed them something. And as a leader in the

body positivity movement and she writes about this, you know, she felt people would come to her and say, I realized I could love myself because of you. I could have what I wanted because of you. And when she would lose weight, people would get upset with her. So that becomes a part of the expectations of the relationship where she has to have a happy ending with her husband, because if she doesn't, she's letting these people down. They won't know that they can have a happy ending. And so that's why Shrill ends with such a happy ending. And adult braces goes, actually, that was all a lie. I thought you all needed a happy ending. But now I'm not lying when I give you a happy ending. Now I'm telling and it's kind of like, girl, I think you might

be lying to give us the happy ending again. So it's just because of, of all of this has taken off in so many directions. And to Lindy-Wes' credit, it takes, you know, talented writing, talented storytelling to get people this engaged and involved. A lot of polyamorous relationship from Seattle. Like, how is that even surprising? It really is a throwback to a certain kind of, at least for me, low-stakes internet writer culture drama, that we haven't really had a lot of in the last few years. Yeah, in a while, you know, I think a lot of us have smartened up. I think when Lindy came up, it was the time of the bleed on the internet and make a name

for yourself era, where you wrote a piece for Jezebel or whatever, sharing your deepest, what sexual, deepest, darkest shame. And that was a way to talk about issues that were really relevant. You know, that's not to say that what Lindy was writing about, you know, wasn't relevant. but it was something that encouraged a parissocial readership, right? It's like everyone should be able to write about their life, pull from their life, write memoir, but it extending onto social media in a new way than ever before really, it extending onto social media, it extending into the way people understand and represent

their politics, right? It's like, do you support Lindy West? You can't just be a fan. It's like, oh, but are you a feminist? If you don't like Lindy West, like it becomes more. And I think just that coming of age of that time as a writer, it seemed like that sucked. I'm a little younger than her to me. I was like, oh, gosh, I don't want to have to like owe a bunch of fans something because

they think that my body is their property because they like read a book I wrote. You know, I kind of was able to learn from that. So I think my generation, you know, we were as willing to write for digital blogs like ExoJane and Jezebel just to kind of have that moment. So when we see such naked kind of sharing, like we are saying an adult braces, it does feel like a throwback to that. I think people are kind of shocked. She is so just raw with a lot in it. Like she is talking about the negatives.

I'm cheating not just on her, but on their other partner. In the middle of the book, she reveals that actually he was seeing two other women, not just one. And, you know, so it is written in a way where we're not just supposed to be like, oh, this is great. she was unquestioning and supportive the whole time. We are going on a very dark journey with Lindy. So I think that's kind of, you know, making people go, whoa. This writer is being so real. But also this means that feminism of the 2010s was a lie.

And it's just like, okay, it doesn't have to mean all of that. Let's all just take a breath. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really glad that you mentioned the sort of age that you came of age. because I very much came of age in the Lindy West streets. You know, I think I kind of came of age as a feminist in that very particular moment in the 2010s. And subsequently, I do have a deep reverence for Lindy West's writing because back there, that did have cultural cachet and cultural capital and political capital.

I remember the era of Exo Jane. They used to call it the personal essay industrial complex. I remember a very specific personal essay that somebody wrote about a hairball that got stuck in their vagina. Being the specific essay where folks were like, we've hit peak personal essay. Personal essay. There's nothing else we can do here. I was writing on the internet in those days. And you're so right that the expectation was you would write something.

And I was never as successful as Lundy West, obviously. but like the expectation was that you wanted to be a feminist voice online. You would write something incredibly personal about your body, your sex life, your upbringing, these personal parts of yourself. You would put it on a blog like Ex-O-Jane. You would, maybe you would get $50 for writing that. Like the compensation was very low. But there is this feeling that maybe that could turn into a book deal or a show.

Yes, or a show. You could build up your cultural cachet. And I just kind of wonder if the moment, if that moment has come and passed, I think that we're more critical, we're more skeptical. I think that we're, I don't want to say oversharing, but I think that level of like opening up like that on the page, I think folks are a lot less forgiving. And I think that that we equate that a lot less with honest writing. Back in the 2010s, we just didn't have a lot of women who were writing. that way. So if you wrote openly and honestly about your body, your sex life, all of this, it automatically gave it a kind of gravitas that I think we're, I think it's like the culture

has moved a little bit past that today. What do you think about that? Absolutely. Where now it's like, it isn't shocking or surprising to hear a woman talk about farting and poop. It's like, yeah, okay. It's, yeah, it's not that up to date. And that is a kind of the issue with adult braces is that it does still feel like it's stuck in that 2010s era. You know, I would say the biggest sign we've all moved on is if the cut were to ask me to write a personal essay today, I would go, why do you want to destroy my life? I would be like, what? I'd be like, no, no, this is a trap.

Like, it's so clear now that that is done to feed the attention economy. And I think younger people who have grown up in that economy who see every part of their lives, you know, recorded, put online where they're just afraid to even go out because if they do something and someone else notices it, they could end up as a theme in a Twitter thread or something and they don't even know that they're a character of the day online.

And I think because of that, people are so much more careful with their privacy. And so I think this book does feel like it's still stuck in that 2010s era where it wants to be like, it wants to present itself as very raw, open, honest.

But really, we all feel it in that way where it's presenting a narrative, right? Where it's like, this isn't raw, open honest. This isn't something where like a wife is on TikTok telling the story tale of like how her marriage broke down. This is a narrative that you've crafted of how you're viewing this because you want to sell that to your fans. You want to sell and I told you so to your trolls. and you want to, again, like, Shrill's present a story, you know, this could turn into a book,

or this could turn into a movie, this could turn into a TV show. We're already like, what's the next book going to be? Is it going to be her divorce? And in an interview with Slate, she says, you know, I need this book to, like, float us for a while. So I think now the nakedness of that being for, you know, like you said, the just sort of cultural attention to get your name out there, I think now that is so raw, like just so clear that people can't relate to it in a way

where it's like, oh, this is raw honesty. Like, oh, you know, I am learning something about her. It just feels just kind of like a gimmick of it, you know, even with the polyamory, even again with her talking about sort of body issues in the book,

it all just kind of feels a bit gimmicky because it is so wrapped up in her husband. And it's like, why is this person who was sort of upheld as a feminist writer of the 2010s telling us that, you know, actually she was able to fix her body issues by starting a sub-dom relationship with her husband. That is a whole other story. You know, I think people are also getting lost in the polyamory of it all.

There's so much more that, you know, just feels very out of touch with sort of where I think younger feminists are today, where a lot of those narratives that Lindy hears in her head don't really resonate for them. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan

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podcasts. At our back. If you have not read the book or read anything about it, from listening to us talk, you might think that the entirety of the book is about her marriage and like her journey to embracing polyamory and all of that. But her book, there's so much more in the book, right? It's about her relationship to her body. It's also very much a travelogue. Yeah. And very much about her parents.

Yeah. You know, I'll give a quick little summary. But the book starts in the aftermath of where Shrill left us, basically. Shrill tells us she has this big, happy, beautiful, fat wedding. Everyone is happy. The saddest thing is, you know, her dad has just died, but at least this is her new life now. And then, adult braces starts with so. actually that was all a facade.

After my father passed, that was why Aham came back to my life, because, you know, he saw that I was so depressed and decided we could be back together, but only if we can have an open relationship and open marriage. And it is basically an ultimatum that AHA presents. It is basically, if you want me back and you want to get married, it has to be an open marriage.

his explanation is that monogamy, not marriage, because they do get married, monogamy is akin to slavery and ownership, and that is why he cannot be monogamous because it is basically her white ownership of his body. Marriage is fine as long as they, you know, on paper I can claim you on my taxes or something, but actual monogamy within that marriage is slavery. And Lindy basically goes, I'm white and I'm codependent, so I just don't get it, but he's so smart and right. And it's just, you know, from there, they decide to do it, but her stance is, don't ask, don't tell. Like, I don't want to know anything, but she does lay out rules.

She's like, don't sleep with anyone we know, don't sleep with anyone in our community. Don't see anyone multiple times, you know, basically don't have a girlfriend if it's just like, one nice stands, whatever, I don't care. And I don't want to hear about it. And then one day she gets a text from a fan that's like, hey, I saw your husband making out with someone at a bar. And that's when she realizes like, oh,

my husband has an entire girlfriend in Portland. And that becomes a whole thing where he's like, I don't care if you're unhappy with it. I'm going to go to Portland once a month and be with this person in the process of that. Lindy also finds out that he's been seeing a girl in their neighborhood, who they all know, which totally breaks the rule.

She's younger, just every rule that. And at this point, Lindy's like, you've broken every rule. I have every right to leave you and she decides to go on a road trip. And this is really the travelogue part of the book and which I think is the strongest part of the book. I really wish, yeah, I really wish so much more of it was just like the insights into her travels. I love even just the part when she transcribes like her thoughts as she's just like driving and talking into a microphone. And she rents a van does like the whole van life thing and she decides to drive. from Seattle to Kokomo, Florida.

And this is sort of the spark of the whole journey and travel and road trip. But also, I think, is the perfect sort of metaphor for the entire book's issue. So at the start, she goes, I was always obsessed with the Beach Boy song. Love it. And that's when I decided I need to have my own Kokomo moment.

I need to escape and get away. You know, find myself. I'm going to go to Kokomo. and she gets a, you know, map out and gets online and is like driving to Kokomo, Florida. And what does she discover? It's not real. Kokomo Floyd. Which I, like, I knew that.

I feel like any, like most people know that. But in the book, it's like, she has no, she's like, oh my gosh, another letdown in my life. But she goes, you know what? Forget it. I'll just drive to the keys. I'm just going to drive, you know, the floor keys. It'll still be beautiful. And that's what she ends up doing.

But then on the drive back, she goes, on my way back to Seattle, I'm going to go visit my friends in Michigan, Samantha Irby and her wife, who also an amazing writer. Oh, my God, yes. Who I would say, actually, as everyone is kind of reliving the Cindy or the Lindy West stuff, I'm like, actually, I came up on Samantha Irby at that time. Oh, yeah. Also, I feel like Samantha in the book, I feel like is like the person that I have.

identify with the most in the most. I was I was like Samantha rube is the hero of the book and actually maybe all have a friend like that like you learn the most about Lindy through Sam which will but she decides I'm going to go to Michigan and see Sam and on the way she misses an exit and gets turned around in Indianapolis and suddenly she sees a sign for Kokomo Indiana and she says I swear on Mike Davis's life the guy from Beach Boys I swear to God I had no I idea, Kokomo, Indiana was a thing. This was just kismet. This was magic. Like, wow, here in the most unexpected place, I find what I was really looking for. Whoa. But then she's also like, I found out the town like has a racist history. So like things still are racist. And the thing is,

though, like, you just told it, you did research and found out Kokomo wasn't real. And in any research that's talking about, they all mentioned Kokomo, Indiana. Like on the, Wikipedia page for the song, it's like the only Cocoa, it's Kokomo Indiana. Like, there's no way you didn't know Kokomo Indiana wasn't real. But it's a pretty story, right? To be like, I was on this road trip and I just stumbled across it. It's beautiful narrative. It's like when you're writing the TV show, you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Because just saying, yeah, I saw there was a Kokomo Indiana and I went, that's kind of funny. I'll stop by. It's on the way to go see my friend isn't interesting, right? it's just kind of like, yeah, you knew it was there, so you went that way, because there's no reason to go through Michigan if you're going to Seattle from, you know, just say you've wanted to go see coconut, it's fine. But instead it has to be dressed up in this really beautiful, like, fairy tale moment. And that is really the issue with the book is that she's still dressing up everything and her life into this beautiful narrative. And it feels like it's not so much even for her own. sake because throughout the book she questions herself, right? Like there's parts where she's like, am I just forcing myself into this thruple because I feel like I'm losing my husband? And this is the only way to keep him. And then she'll just kind of be like, but anyway, I saw a stand to buy some honey.

Honey, isn't that crazy? And she doesn't keep asking the question. She lets it go. So I see a lot of people pushing back and saying, you know, they're criticizing her because people don't want to believe a woman could make this choice or, you know, they don't want to believe a woman could actually be in a polyamory. But people are just asking the questions that Lindy's asking in the book. You know, they're having the same doubt she has in the book. And it's just that the book doesn't give a satisfying answer. It just sort of in its last few pages goes. And it just so happens. I also love my husband's girlfriend and he has great taste in women and she's really hot and thin. and she likes me, so that's great, and now we're all happy because she helps me manage our calendar and pay our bills.

And he cooks sometimes and gets wood. And so, you know, to people who've read her writing, it doesn't sound so much like a happy ending. For people who are non-monogamous, it's a little problematic and gets into issues of unicorns and women who use polyamory basically to set up like a liberal polygamous institution where it's a bunch of women working together to handle a man's needs. But they're doing it in a liberal way, which is another big part of the book that some people have issue with is that for her it is embracing Roy in this thruple

is her saying, I am a more liberal person. I, you know, am able to understand that monogamy is racist and if the rest of the world could understand and open up their minds to things like this, like falling in love with their husband's girlfriend. Maybe we wouldn't have so much hate. Maybe we wouldn't have conservatives. She drives through a lot of conservative places where she's like, really just assuming everyone is racist. It's a little odd. Like she, you know, meets people and she's like, oh, maybe if they could understand non-monogamy, they wouldn't be so close-minded. But it's like, girl, there's those conservatives are probably swingers who are

having more threesome than you. Like you're in Florida. talking about these conservatives. And it's like, those people are probably, like, leaving the Trump rally to have sex. Like, it doesn't matter. Being ethically non-monogamous does not make you liberal. Like, the Tiger King was polyamorous. Like, but the book doesn't want to get into that.

The book really wants you to believe, like, what we've created here is a liberal leftist, ideal relationship. Other people should consider this kind of lifestyle because it makes you more socially, morally correct. That is a threat of the book is, you know, if the world were to embrace what I'm doing here, everyone would be happy. And yeah, it just feels very out of touch

because it's like, no, people do that. It doesn't matter. And another example in the book, and I wrote a piece for Harper's about this and mentioned this part, but she is in Idaho or Montana, I believe, when she stops to buy honey from a guy who is named Fat Daddy. He makes his own honey, sells it by the side of the road.

He's with his friend and she buys some. And she notices they have Second Amendment hats on. And she's like, oh, no, like, I've just supported conservative honey. Like, they have Second Amendment hats on. I bet that they're, like, pro life and they're going to use my money to go make signs for the pro-life clinic. And if only Fat Daddy could focus on his honey and be a nice honeyman, he wouldn't need to be a conservative who loves. loves Trump. And if he could just, you know, why can't people do that? Why can they just focus on their hobbies instead of being haters? And it's like, well, girl, that man is focused on his honey.

You just bought his honey. You have the honey. How much more focused do you want him to be on his honey? He makes it. He sells it. He puts a label on the honey. He's selling his honey. He is a nice honeyman like you're saying. It just isn't working out the way you wanted because it doesn't actually work that way. You know, he can be a nice B-man and be a conservative. And for all you know, fat daddy is a gay, polyamorous libertarian. Like, that's how the world is now. But Lindy sees it in a very black and white way in adult braces where it's like, no, you either have to be conservative monogamous Christian or radical liberal who is seeking progressive approval by being in a thruple. And, you know, I think that at the heart of this is another issue people sort of take

with the book. You wrote a phenomenal piece in Harper's that will put in the show notes called Lindy West and the Trap of Perfect Polyamory. And you are a polyamorous person yourself. I would say I've been an open thing, but I have dabbled in polyamory myself. And one of the points that you make that you've just sort of summarized is that I think, I don't think the book is trying to be like a how to guide of how one should do polyamory. And everybody's relationships are always messy and like, you know, whatever kind of structure you're trying to do. But I do think there is the thread that you called out of practicing polyamory being inherently more progressive than other kinds of relationships. And I have come along many an ethically non-monogamous person who I would not describe as altruistic or moral or progressive.

I just watched the Manosphere documentary where all of the different men in that documentary talk about how their relationships. technically. Yeah, they're like, oh, our relationship is one side of Polly where my... The man can date so many people and the girl can. And there are so many even liberals who would look at that doc and say, I hate that documentary who go, well, yeah, I am in a dynamic where like I date my husband's girlfriend and we date each other and I date my husband. And yes, my husband dates both of us and he can go date other women, but we're only allowed to date women. And they can justify it somehow. But they separate themselves from those man-like your guys.

And to me it's like, look, I'm polyamorous, okay? It sucks. It sucks. It sucks that I have something in common with those guys, but I do. It sucks that I have something in common with the Tiger King, but I do, okay? For some reason, we chose a similar relationship style. And if you're going to be polyamorous, I think you have to start there. You can't start from a place of, I'm choosing this because I want to be more moral,

or I am solving racism in my relationship if I open it up. If you do that, you're really more of a polygamist. You're basically kind of in line with Mormons or, not Mormons, but fundamentalists, you know, who say we have to have a plural marriage because it makes us more religious. It makes us closer to God. To me, that's when the line starts blurring. You know, you just have to look at polyamory as a different relationship style than monogamy. That has to be it. And if from there you go, oh, okay, I still want to do it. great, good place to start. But reading adult braces, it doesn't feel like that's where Lindy is. It feels like she wants to do it because her husband's telling her, if you don't want to be racist,

you gotta let me have an open relationship. And she's like, it does seem like if I want to be accepted in progressive circles, that's what I have to agree to. And so, okay. And yeah, let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, you only got in because you're, Your parents made a huge donation.

The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt Yardt. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged.

One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined.

So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's IHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam, it's Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs.

I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man,

hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to point. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things.

I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world, fighting for our lives.

All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it. Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with Deanna Maria Riva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own.

I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that Ness was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How high can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting.

They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter, and dive into it, unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of My Cultura Podcast Network available on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Ashley and I are both black women who have both been in polyamorous relationships.

And there's just something about the racial and power dynamics at play when someone says that being polyamorous is less aligned with white supremacy than other relationship structures that just makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm honestly not even sure what exactly it is. I want to double tap on that a little bit. Lindy's husband is a person of color. Lindy is white. I really deeply bristled at the bit where Aham tells her that because she's white,

or, she doesn't tell her that. She believes that because she is white, she might not be as attuned as he is to this dynamic where she might want to be owning a person of color. It may be grounded in white supremacy in ways that she's not really able to see. Ergo she should, you know, get on board with this way of thinking. I can't even articulate why, but I found that deeply, like I, why do I hate that so much? What's going on with that? Oh, because you should hate that so much. Because it's just, you should hate it. It's textbook manipulation that makes no sense.

There's so many things that play in that dynamic that Lindy sort of addresses in being like, I can't fully understand because he's a person of color. Like if you look sort of into his storytelling, he also, this is another thing we will talk about.

He is a very, very successful man. He wants you to know that. He has, he's his own performance. and a comedian, and he is very successful. And in a lot of his work, he talks about how the separation from his Nigerian father has given him identity issues. He doesn't, you know, he grew up with his white mother. He struggles with his race.

So having this wife who is like reinstilling him as a black man, you can tell benefits both of them. So they're both playing into this dynamic where he's like, oh, yes, I understand blackness. You make me feel that way. And so when I say monogamy is. is basically slavery, you want to agree with me because you have to believe that, you know, our relationship is this positive dynamic of, like, politics and whatever.

And really, you know, your relationship should be about your own personal needs and desires. Like, your personal into relationship cannot fix racism. So don't date for that reason. That's how you'll end up with a guy who's like, oh, sorry, you wanted to only, sleep with me in our marriage? Are you a slaveowner? Ashley, if I had a nickel for every cis-hett man who told me, every white cis-hit man who told me that we should get together because it would be a good thing for society if we had sex or may a mixed-race baby, I would only have like three nickels, but that's enough.

That's too many. That's too many nickels. It's, you know, and obviously there are normal interracial couples and relationships I have dated interracially. Obviously there's people who are normal about it, but there are people who do it because they see it as this like political status that says, look at me, I'm so progressive. And using

your relationship that way is dangerous. And I think at its core adult braces is the story of that. It's the danger of using your relationship as part of your identity politics. And the failure of identity politics when you're also trying to sell your identity to fans,

because it makes you money. And so it is this weird circle of, you know, Lindy and her partners saying, stop talking about us, stop talking about us, but please talk about us, please talk about us, read the book, but only in the way that we want you to talk about us. And it just all kind of feeds into itself.

So you mentioned what I feel like as a little bit of the elephant in the room, which is what kind of pushed this from just something I was thinking about, just a bug in my brain to I need to talk to someone about this immediately or I will pop. The email.

The email. You mentioned Aham, Lindy's partner. Yes. So one of the earliest profiles of this book was by this phenomenal slate writer, Sachi Cole. Memoirist herself wrote a book about her marriage

and in her book that her marriage ends in divorce. I thought the piece was a very fair look at Lindy, Lindy's work, the book, all of that. And just also will say Sachi is also a documentarian. So she made a documentary about Girls Gone Wild for Peacock that is based on her reporting.

Yeah, it's based on her reporting that she did for I want to say that was BuzzFeed. But the piece she did on that guy was the basis for that. But I just say that to say she's very good at presenting an even picture, right? Like she isn't, she didn't come there to destroy that.

And I thought it was actually very polite. Like I was like, dang, somebody, maybe polyamorous would have gone a bit harder and asked some harder questions. But I was like, it's not about that. It really is about Lindy, where Lindy's at right now in her life and what this book tour means to her and this book means. And I thought it was a great piece. It isn't really about the thruple.

It's not really about Roy and Aham. It briefly mentions them. It says that the weekends she goes to do the interview, to Roy in Ahammer in Boston working on a joint project. That's about all of it, all it says about them. It quotes them on the relationship where they, you know, basically like we love Lindy, we support her so much. And that's all it says.

Nothing really negative. I'd say maybe the most negative thing in the piece is when she quotes Lindy saying, I need this book to float us for a while. You know, things are getting scary and I have to take care of my family. And that's really the only kind of like, oh, hmm, you know. But nothing negative. But, you know, the profile comes out. The book comes out.

It becomes a bit of a thing people are talking about. And honestly, I feel like had this email not happened, we wouldn't still be talking about it. But then, Saatchie does an interview on In Case You Missed It, Slate's podcast, and reveals that after the profile came out, Aham, Roya, and Lindy all emailed her. Very, very angry about this, again, polite, nice profile. You have got to hear the email that Aham sent. the slate writer who profiled Lindy. So here it is. This was such a shitty thing to do, Sachi. You intentionally skewed this story to fit your own bitter narrative. You wasted my time and all of our time to write an article that was going to be the same no matter what we said.

You absolutely dehumanized me and intentionally diminished my personhood and career. Loia and I were on a shared project in Boston. However you worded it, I was performing four shows at the Paramount, and Roya is my producer. I am a person with a life and a great career and a complicated life, and you boiled me down to a cheater, who was on a school project making a diorama or some shit because you are mad about your life. You barely wrote about the book. You just wrote rage-bate articles specifically designed to direct hate toward me. You are a shitty fucking person. You're a bitter, untalented, mean girl, and you should absolutely be ashamed of yourself. You fucking suck. When Slate reached out for comment, Aham said yes, the email had been a typo,

and what he had meant to say was free Palestine. She reads Aham's email out loud, the whole thing. It is the stereotype of a narcissistic, egotistical man who is angry that his wife is getting more attention than him in a profile about her. It calls, um, it calls, Bidder, basically, like, because she's divorced and jealous. Basically, everything that men said to Lindy when she was coming up that would make Lindy go, that's misogyny. He says to this woman. And then C-C's Lindy, Roya, and his girlfriend's on this email.

Roya sends an email to Sachi. C-C's her part, you know, the partners. And hers is, I guess, the longest one. But Sachi doesn't read it. But, girl, put that out there. Put all the publish. publish those emails. We want the emails.

But she does tell us that Roy basically accuses her of being racist, saying that Sachi needs therapy, that nobody reads Slate anyway. And it's you know a little bitter and angry and at times kind of fair and polite. And then Lindy also sends an email

that is polite, but it's basically like you know, you didn't really make Aham look great. Like you should have made him look better. And there's one quote in the in the article where Sachi goes, or where Lindy goes, I am not trying to do PR for a hum. Well, I'm always trying to do PR for a hum.

And it's like, that's the issue. It's like, yeah, the book feels like PR for him. You don't even fully get into the details, the conversations that make you decide to stay with him. That's the issue. And now that we see, even from a polite piece like this, how much it hurt his ego and you're telling us he helped you edit every line of this book he had a say in the edit it makes me wonder like how much did he make you take out because he wanted to look that he wanted to look

professional you know his biggest complaint to saji is i wasn't just working on a joint project with roya i was in boston performing a show that i wrote and roya's my producer and it's like you're mad that she wasn't specific about the show like it wasn't a profile on you but it's it's you you're It just shows you like maybe this is a dynamic where two women are managing a man's ego. And that that's the part. It just all kind of feels gross now when you see that email and you're like, how can someone be with someone who would be okay with this? Who would not just immediately offer like an apology and like an I'm so sorry,

but actually would send another email basically supporting that? it's unthinkable to me. So now it's become this thing of like beyond just a book about polyamory or the failures of like 2010's writing and stuff. It's like, wait a second. Like what does this say about like this mean girl identity politics era that like Lindy did push at the time where yes people were kind of like

mean to her but like as her response was like yeah, this is a witch. I'm a witch and I'm hunting. you. And now she's still doing that. Like, she still has that energy with it where her and her partner, like, they're responding to trolls and they're just kind of like, well, you guys are racist. And it's like, no, we're not racist for asking the same questions you are. Or after he sends this email, they ask for a reply. And his response is just, oh, you know what? My email was a typo. I meant to say free Palestine.

and it's like you like maybe in like in 2012 that would have been like sassy but now it's like how do you can't send someone to hate email and then when they reply to be like what you can't be like yeah well how about Palestine there's bigger issues no you email me you had the problem how are you going to be like maybe you should focus on things that matter

when it's like you you brought this up But that's what they try to do. Like, you know, people pointed out that throughout the book, Roya, the girlfriend, mostly feels like an empty figure. Like she feels like an extension of Roya and Lindy's ego, you know? Lindy only lets us know Roya and as much as Roya is attracted to her. That's all we know about her. We know that she helps to manage Aham's calendar.

That's, you know, and that she's skinny and goth and hot. That's what really matters is she's skinny, she's skinny, she's skinny, in Govan Hot. And people pointed that out and Lindy's response was, how dare you? Roya is Persian. And with the war happening in Iran, it is racist that you bring this up now. And it's like, no, you can, no, that's the type of like identity, public stuff that sure, maybe in 2014, people would have been like, oh, yeah, okay, I sure, well, I won't say anything, but it doesn't work anymore. And that's what feels just very out of touch with the

whole thing. And I think that's why it's causing so much friction for conservatives, liberals, just across the board. Everyone is just upset with something with this book. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide. Not

quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odin Kirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group?

The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, uh, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group, the yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change.

Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. Uh, one or race. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again.

More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll listen to. hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting.

Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-i-Hart. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what.

He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid.

He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash will get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball.

Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast.

How hard can it be with the Adamani Arriba, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex?

dating at 45. How hard can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter, and dive into it unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to how hard can it be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. everyone, I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world, fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain. You're not just going to put your mind over it. Yep, yep, exactly.

And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's get right back into it. something that I've seen a little bit of online, and you kind of hit on it a moment ago, is that we're weirdos for even talking about this marriage. And that I really pushed back on because just like when I was publishing those essays about my personal life for 50 bucks a pop, I couldn't then say, nobody gets to, I want the money that comes with talking about my personal life,

but nobody better talk about it. I don't want to see any chatter about what I've just told you. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. No criticism, no pushback. Unless it's glowing and positive, then okay, then you can talk about it, but only if it's the way I like. And it's like, did she write the book for us to read it and talk about it or not? Are we supposed to read it and discuss it and think about it?

Or am I just supposed to read it, take her word for it and let it go? Because I think one of those things is way more interesting. The host of the podcast, The Stacks, which is all about books and reading, had this really great thread that was like, people might not like it, but actually publicly hating on books is good for the book industry because people want to be involved in a medium that has a cultural conversation involved with it. If the whole thing is you read this book and it's problematic to put any kind of opinion about it, good, bad or the other into the world, that you can't do that, then books as a medium are going to die out because what is the point of reading a book that you

can't be part of a conversation on? So like, yes, I wasn't. I would absolutely hate it if I wrote a book about my marriage and that was really like raw and honest and all those things that she's going for. And people chimed in with what they really thought. But that's why I don't write books like that because I don't want to hear people. I would crumble and like not get out of bed. But that like a book like that under the world, it's ultimately good with a medium to have a discussion around. And it's also not like Lindy doesn't know that. We know she knows this.

It's not her first rodeo. This isn't her first memoir where she. She's talked about her relationship. So she had to know they were going to get this kind of pushback. They had to know there was going to be backlash. And that's why there was another substack piece that came out that basically points out. You know, she knows this is good for books. It's good for books sales.

She needs this book to float them. And it feels a bit manufactured. It feels a bit like, like, did you send an email a lot because you knew that would push this, like, discourse into another week? like, because there's no way you thought that's going to make me look good or make him look good. So it's starting to feel a bit like, okay, yeah, we are, this is very much a push to sell a book and it is working. Congratulations to her. She put out a piece that was like in defense of it. Like I'm allowed to be polyamorous where their line is people are infanticizing me.

I think that I'm brainwashed and being used. And it's just because no one trusts that I have my own age. agency. And that's how they're pushing back at it. And I think they know that is also going to make people angry because that's not what people have an issue with. So it's just, again, them wanting to fan the fans, them wanting to fan the flames because, yeah, it sells books. That's what they want. But I do think it's interesting that she's still on the book tour. And a few people have been talking about the experience now because it started with Q&A. So she'd read from the book, a Q&A, people could ask whatever.

And then people who bought tickets got a notification that now Q&A questions had to be sent in beforehand. This was after Slate was published after the book came out and there was that initial pushback. So then it was your questions have to be pre-approved, which other people were like, they didn't do that at the beginning. And then, so the Chicago one was the first date where pre-approved questions, people went and they didn't do a Q&A at all. and they remove the Q&A from the rest of the book tour. So I'm so curious what questions people sent in because I don't think those went her way either. And apparently she's even stopped reading from the book on the book tour.

At the Chicago date, it was her and Samantha Irby, and they just kind of told stories. People said it was more like a stand-up show. So it's interesting that she does seem to sort of be like, well, I'm just not going to talk about the book then. Like if it's upsetting people, I'm not going to talk about it. like then let's just ignore the book. Don't ask me any questions about the book.

Like, don't bring up the book. And it's just like, then why did you, do you want us to read it or not? Do you want us to talk about it or not? Like, again, it's this like, you know, kind of a weird dance of like, oh, no, don't look at me, but look at me. But look at me.

And it's, it's just confusing. It's like, girl, do the book tour. Ask the hard questions. Go for that viral moment. Like, that's what you want to do. Just embrace it and do it. I could bit by page by page. by pay book club style go through this book and have a million things to say just you know it i does

i i do think that it does a great job of showing the i don't want to say failures but just the pressures of being a feminist or an icon or just a person of attention really at the time when lindy west was and you know i also think samantha urbys involvement in the book presents two really interesting pictures, right? Because like you said, Samantha, we came up kind of reading. She also very much putting her life on the page. You know, in Chicago, she had a whole live show where she would tell like embarrassing sex stories and stuff. But now I would say it leads a pretty private life, you know, still writes about herself, but has gone into TV, private life. But I don't think she ever felt this burden of like, I need to be everything for everyone.

maybe because as a black woman, she understood you can't do that at all. Whereas Lindy felt like I have to be everything for fat women. I have to be everything for the body positivity movement. And she talks about that pressure. And it has led her to making personal relationship, everything, decisions based on that pressure and that vision of herself. So I think reading it from that view and not so much as like the messy polyamory book, is a lot more interesting. Definitely.

It reminds me of, I read Issa Ray's first book, Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, which is very much like personal stories. I love the book. But then, and this was, the book came out right when her success was like starting to sort of like take,

like I watched her web series, so I had always known who she was, but like right when it was starting to get like big. And then like years later, after she was already like a certified A-List star, I saw her, a talk where she was like, looking back, I wish I had been a little bit more judicious about how I gave pieces of myself to the public. I wish I had, I wish I had been a little bit more thoughtful

about how I doled out these incredibly private pieces of myself, because once they're out there, you can't get them back. And I think that always stuck with me. And I wonder if it's part of what you're saying is that, you know, we're not in the era of the 2010s where that tradeoff is necessarily going to be worth it or come with longevity. And I wonder if we're sort of seeing, you know, the effects of sort of just the different kind of digital media climate that we're actually in today in 2026. Yeah. And now I think it's the other side of it where people are too thoughtful about what they want to put it out. They know that at this point they can use it to control the narrative. And that is what Lindy says in the slate, but an interview where she says, I wanted to

correct the narrative. I wanted to put out the definitive version of my story. And so it becomes this thing that she overthr thinks so that it can be presented in a feminist way of how she came to this choice where other people don't get to say she was coerced into this. He lied. It wasn't ethical because she can say, no, I have put out the, you know, this is the story. This is how it went. And it ends up being a little more overthought and fake than authentic and real. Like it was in those old days when it was like, oh, girl, you did not need to tell the world this. You know, it doesn't have that authenticity to it, it just feels like, oh, this is what you wanted to tell the world. Okay, is this what you're trying to tell yourself too?

But if you ask that question, then it's, don't know, stop. How dare you have an opinion about this book that you paid to read? That you paid to read. How dare you? Oh, just because I ask in the book if my relationship isn't, you know, stable and if this is just me trying to distract myself, you think you can ask that question? It's like, girl, I, and you know. I think it's inter-ed.

The book ends with a fart joke. And that's basically its conclusion is, yeah, I don't know what I'm doing, but I enjoy this right now. Will it work? I don't know. And that is kind of her answer to the question she asks herself. So it doesn't feel like it has a satisfying ending. It doesn't feel like, you know, this woman who finds this beautiful enlightenment. It feels like a book setting you up for a book.

breakup memoir and hey I'm all for that I will be right there reading it and then she knows that so hey again kudos to her on the book rollout and the sales like it all of it to me for the people who are kind of saying like she's out of touch I again for you know the ways I've said in the book I do think she is I think a lot of the language in the book is also very 2010s there's like a lot of like j's squeeze moire and like awkward turtle uh and all of that I think maybe shows like a datedness, but if it comes to getting media attention and knowing how to publicize a book in the year 2026, Lydia West knows what she's doing. I think she knows exactly what she's doing. I think Aham knows exactly what he's doing when he sends a very famous slate writer,

an angry email. They had to know that wasn't going to stay private. And if they did think it was going to stay private, then I think that speaks to a whole other disconnect. So what do you say to somebody who has listened to you, to you, your thoughts on this book, who was thinking, actually is the hater of the year? How critical. What do you say to someone who's listening? And I know someone listening is thinking that. Absolutely probably. I mean, I feel like I've been very fair. You know, I think my issue mainly, and this is in my piece for Harper's, isn't, you know, feeling disappointed in Lindy or like she let me down. Like I said, she, I've never felt like Lindy West owes me anything.

I think the most beautiful things she can do and be is to live her own life for her own choices. And those to me have my favorite moments in the book when she is on the road trip by herself and pushing herself to do something that is new to her that isn't sleeping with her husband's girlfriend. You know, I'm glad she tried that too. Sure, I've slept with all that's girlfriends. Guess, Lindy, do it. But I was more interested when it was her pushing herself to like go on a hike or to do something

difficult or to revisit a challenge that she felt she previously failed in this time accomplishing. And so I have positive things to say. I just think we see a more interesting Lindy in those moments when she can admit her failures, when she isn't concerned with appearing perfect for her fans or, you know, trying to be perfect so she can own the trolls. When she is just honest in the book about her mistakes, her failures, the depression, that's when I think the book is at its best. Also, when she's with her friends, that's when the book is at its best. And it's so frustrating that she doesn't seem to see that. You know, she talks about like, she's away from Aham and she's with Sam. And when she gets to Michigan, she gets to her hotel and Sam and her

wife have left Lindy all of these treats that are her favorites. And it is the moment we learn the most about Lindy Katta in the whole book. And it's because Sam is like your favorite granola bars because you like this, your favorite this, because you like this. And it's like, girl, do you not see you have these friends who love and know you more than this man who has been giving you like stress hives and you know you want to see her in those moments you want to be like what does sam have to say about what aham did like let's get into that and instead that she circles back around to but my whole world is aham he's my home that's what matters the most and that to me is like where the disappointing parts are, that it comes back to that and then tries to present that as a

perfect picture. And the polyamory is a perfect picture. And it's like, Lindy, it doesn't have to be perfect. You don't owe us perfection. Polyamory does not owe anyone perfection. I think she also feels this burden, you know, because now she isn't just someone who has to represent all fat people. She's also someone who's going to have to represent all ethical non-monogamous couples. And if their relationship fails, it's a failure for all ethical non-monogamy. And I understand the pressure of that being a public poly person, but you have to let that go. You know, monogamous people have bad relationships. Polyamorous people and polygamous have bad relationships and go on to have other relationships that are good, that are bad. It's part of it. You know, polyamory doesn't make your

relationship inherently good. It doesn't make you a perfect partner who's great with honesty and jealousy automatically. It doesn't fix things. So when she sells us this story of, and everything's fixed and everything's perfect and we figured out our sleep schedules and I actually love sleeping alone. It turns out I never wanted to sleep with my husband even though I used to love sleeping with my husband. It turns out I did it. And it's kind of like you guys don't even fight about like who takes too much time in the shower. You've never argued over like I want pizza for dinner but oh I want Chinese food. That is like it's just presented as we have amazing threesomes and everything is great. So suck it. Haters. And that doesn't work anymore. That's not. That's not.

I don't think anyone's buying that story anymore. Ashley, thank you so much for being here. I know you've got exciting projects, cooking. Where can folks keep up with you? Yeah, you can follow me at the Ashley Ray Everywhere. Subscribe to my substack Deep Trouble, which will have some exciting announcements coming up. If you're in L.A., look around for some live shows I have coming up.

And yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me again. I could talk about this book for four more hours. Me too. I could randomly open a page, read a segment, and be like, we didn't even get into the sub-dom relationship.

Yes, yes. Keep an eye out for Ashley Ray's Adult Braces Book Club. We just read it all braces. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative.

Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy. Not quite.

Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David. Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season.

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