The reports of the death of straight womanhood were greatly exaggerated
Lindy West's memoir Adult Braces sparked widespread discussion for its portrayal of a polyamorous relationship following her husband's infidelity, challenging expectations of feminist narratives around love and liberation. While marketed as a progressive embrace of ethical non-monogamy, many readers interpreted the story as reflecting patriarchal dynamics rather than empowerment. The reaction cut across ideological lines, drawing both criticism and sympathy, and reignited conversations about straight womanhood, desire, and the complexities of modern relationships.
- ▪Lindy West's memoir Adult Braces details her transition from a betrayed wife to joining a throuple with her husband and his former mistress.
- ▪The book was widely discussed not for its literary qualities but for the perceived contradiction between its feminist framing and traditional gender dynamics.
- ▪Many readers, including progressive voices like Laurie Penny, expressed concern that the arrangement reflected emotional compromise rather than liberation.
- ▪The memoir’s cover image of West in tears became symbolic of the broader public skepticism toward the narrative’s portrayal of happiness.
- ▪Phoebe Maltz Bovy argues that the backlash reflects a renewed acknowledgment of straight women’s desires for conventional relationships, despite progressive pressures to reject them.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 24 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: lean left. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Reports of the Death of Civics Are Greatly Exaggerated — NYT — Opinion
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| Original publisher | The Globe and Mail |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-reports-of-death-of-straight-womanhood-greatly-exaggerated/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 16 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-16T10:10:18.168Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-16T10:10:18.168Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | jnd4if8ydytu · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Open this photo in gallery:There is once again acknowledgment that most women are straight, and want obvious things like faithful husbands, as well as less-obvious ones like TV shows about gay male hockey players, writes Phoebe Maltz Bovy.PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: THE GLOBE AND MAIL. SOURCES: GETTY IMAGESShareSave for laterPlease log in to bookmark this story.Log InCreate Free AccountPhoebe Maltz Bovy is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail and author of the new book The Last Straight Woman: On Desiring Men.As you may have heard, Lindy West published a new memoir, Adult Braces, in March. Ms. West is a talented writer and a mildly famous feminist activist. Her previous memoir Shrill, a bestseller, was turned into a television show of the same name.
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