The Degeneracy Industrial Complex: How We Let the Swingers Win

A man convinces his wife to accept his infidelity, accuses her of racism when she objects, moves across the country to be with his mistress, and then forces his wife to essentially date them both—and The New York Times celebrates it as a triumph of modern love.

Welcome to 2026, where moral bankruptcy gets a glossy feature story.

The latest entry in the Times’s “Modern Love” series reads like satire written by conservatives to mock progressive culture. Except it’s real. The piece chronicles how writer Lindy West—co-founder of the “Shout Your Abortion” campaign—was steamrolled into accepting her husband’s polyamorous lifestyle despite it devastating her emotionally.

Let’s be crystal clear about what actually happened here.

Ahamefule “Aham” Oluo racked up two divorces before hitting 30—presumably because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Rather than recognize this as a catastrophic character flaw, he blamed “possessiveness and jealousy” for his failures. Translation: His previous wives had the audacity to expect fidelity.

He then married West and promptly informed her that monogamy wasn’t “healthy” for him. When she understandably broke down crying—because that’s what normal humans do when their spouse proposes institutionalized cheating—did he reconsider? Did he put his wife’s feelings first?

Not a chance.

Instead, this manipulative charlatan played the race card, suggesting it was racist for West, a white woman, to deny him other sexual partners. Let that sink in. He weaponized critical race theory to justify adultery.

This man moved across the country to be with his girlfriend and essentially made his wife date them both. West describes herself as having “a fat body” while noting the girlfriend is “tiny, little, beautiful…very much an inverse of me.” The psychological torment in that admission is palpable.

Yet the Times frames West’s eventual capitulation as a therapeutic breakthrough rather than what it obviously is: Stockholm syndrome with a Brooklyn zip code.

Strip away the therapeutic jargon and social justice veneer, and you’re left with this stark reality: A serial cheater bullied his wife into accepting his infidelity, gaslit her with accusations of racism, and convinced her she should be grateful to participate in his relationship with a more attractive woman.

Twenty years ago, this scenario would’ve been too pathetic for a Lifetime movie. Today, it’s celebrated as evolved relationship dynamics by our cultural gatekeepers.

How We Got Here

This particular brand of sexual deviance isn’t new. “Swinging” defined the 1970s. Americans have practiced various forms of non-monogamy since at least the 1930s. Even “Friends” featured an open marriage storyline in its first season—where the swinger was appropriately portrayed as both morally compromised and ridiculous.

The difference is simple: We’ve surrendered.

We’ve let the deviants set the terms of engagement. We say “polyamory” instead of “adultery with extra steps.” We publish think pieces treating it like innovative relationship architecture instead of calling it what it is: deeply dysfunctional behavior perpetrated by broken people.

The problem isn’t that polyamory happens—deviancy has always existed. The problem is we’ve stopped calling it deviant. We’ve abandoned shame as a social tool. We’ve ceded cultural territory to people who think they’re intellectually superior for rejecting thousands of years of wisdom about human pair bonding.

The typical American couple moving a girlfriend into their house would still scandalize the neighbors—we haven’t fully normalized this madness. But we’ve accepted it as a legitimate lifestyle choice worthy of respectful consideration rather than the farce it represents.

The Solution: Make Weirdos Embarrassed Again

This isn’t a call for moral crusading. Someone else can lead that charge.

This is a practical proposal for cultural restoration: We need to make these people embarrassed again.

Let’s be honest about Ahamefule Oluo. This guy is a disaster. Two divorces before 30 means you need to sit out the rest of the game and reflect on your catastrophic failures. The fact that this walking red flag convinced another woman to marry him—and then manipulated her into accepting his girlfriend—represents a complete breakdown of social accountability.

Ideally, someone would’ve shoved this guy into a locker before he became such a predatory narcissist. Barring that, West should’ve heard “two divorces” and sprinted for the exit. As a last resort, when he proposed “non-monogamy,” she should’ve used her considerable platform to publicly shame him into complete undateability.

But we can’t rehabilitate every manipulative lothario prowling Brooklyn coffee shops for women with art degrees and daddy issues.

What we can do is rebuild a culture that recognizes these people as punchlines rather than pioneers.

We may never return to the days when swinger exposés genuinely shocked Americans. But we can absolutely restore the cultural framework that made the “Friends” episode work—where the swinger was both morally suspect and inherently ridiculous.

Don’t Overshoot the Target

This isn’t primarily a moral crisis requiring righteous condemnation. It’s a farce perpetrated by bad people who think they’re smarter than everyone else.

Sure, some polyamory situations are genuinely disturbing—like the transgender-identifying couple who formed a “throuple” and somehow got their third pregnant. But mostly? This is just broken people intellectualizing their brokenness and expecting applause.

These arrangements don’t require moral crusades. They require mockery.

The next time the Times publishes one of these articles, don’t engage. Don’t click. Don’t legitimize it with outrage.

If you meet someone who identifies as polyamorous, tell them plainly they’re pursuing a dysfunctional arrangement that will end in predictable misery.

And most importantly: Just be normal.

Get married. Have kids. Coach Little League. Host movie nights. Build a stable family. Do not—under any circumstances—cheat on your spouse with an “ethnically ambiguous performance artist” and then intellectualize it until Vassar graduates call you brave.

Being normal is easier than this woke nonsense. It’s infinitely more rewarding. And if enough of us simply commit to normalcy, we can send these hippies back to their Vermont communes where they belong.

The degeneracy industrial complex only functions when we treat it seriously. Stop playing their game. Stop using their language. Stop pretending adults who can’t handle basic monogamy have stumbled onto some higher consciousness.

Call it what it is: pathetic, selfish, and profoundly stupid.

Make weirdos embarrassed again. It’s the only way forward.