When Louis Theroux’s documentary Inside the Manosphere landed on Netflix in March 2026 and immediately hit number one, it brought a lot of things into mainstream conversation that had previously been contained to darker corners of the internet. Among them: a relationship term so neatly constructed, and so precisely revealing of a double standard, that it has been generating arguments at dinner tables ever since.
The term is “one-sided monogamy.” And understanding what it actually means — and what it deliberately borrows from — tells you something worth knowing about how relationship language gets shaped, co-opted, and weaponized.
What the Documentary Exposed
Theroux’s film profiles several prominent manosphere influencers, two of whom — Justin Waller and Myron Gaines, co-host of the Fresh and Fit podcast — openly describe their relationship arrangements as one-sided monogamy. The structure is exactly what it sounds like: the woman remains exclusively loyal to her partner, while the man retains the freedom to sleep with whoever he likes. Waller described his arrangement to Theroux matter-of-factly, noting that his partner “doesn’t talk to other men.” Later in the same conversation, it emerged that Waller does not hold himself to the same standard.
What made the documentary uncomfortable viewing for many wasn’t the hypocrisy alone — that’s old news. It was the confidence with which the term was deployed. “One-sided monogamy” sounds considered. Structured. Almost like a conscious relationship choice, rather than a historically familiar arrangement dressed up in contemporary language.
Borrowed Vocabulary, Missing Foundation
Here is the sleight of hand worth paying attention to. The past decade has seen a genuine, research-backed expansion in how people think and talk about relationship structures. According to research published in Current Opinion in Psychology, at least 5% of North American adults are currently in some form of consensual non-monogamy (CNM) — open relationships, polyamory, swinging — with up to 25% having experimented with non-monogamy at some point. That conversation has built a specific vocabulary around concepts like transparency, mutual agreement, and genuine agency for all involved.
“One-sided monogamy” borrows the grammar of that vocabulary — it sounds like a named, agreed-upon structure — while removing the one thing that makes consensual non-monogamy what it is: the “consensual” part.
A relationship structure called mono-poly already exists within the CNM community, and it describes something legitimately different. In a mono-poly arrangement, one partner chooses to remain monogamous while the other has additional relationships — but the emphasis is on both partners actively choosing their configuration. Leanne Yau, a polyamory educator who spoke about the documentary’s depiction to Cosmopolitan, identified the critical distinction: in genuine mono-poly relationships, the monogamous partner isn’t doing it because their partner asked, coerced, or pressured them into it. Agency is the point.
Traditional Values, Selective Application
The other tension the documentary surfaces is ideological. Many manosphere influencers explicitly position themselves as champions of traditional masculinity — providers, protectors, men of discipline and commitment. Yet the arrangement several of them practice is a form of non-monogamy, a concept their ideological framework typically rejects outright when practiced by women or by progressive relationship communities.
Dating coach Hayley Quinn, responding to the documentary’s depictions, described one-sided monogamy to Tyla as fundamentally transactional — relying on the premise that women are “naturally loyal” while men have an inherent drive toward multiple partners. The arrangement, she argued, sells followers a fantasy of male existence in which sexual freedom coexists with emotional non-accountability. What’s striking about that framing is how thoroughly it contradicts the traditional relationship model these same influencers claim to be defending.
Why the Conversation Is Larger Than the Documentary
The 2024 Match Singles in America report found that 31% of American singles had explored some form of consensual non-monogamy — a number that has shifted considerably over the past decade. Relationship structures are genuinely in flux for a large portion of the population, and the conversations people are having about what they want, what they’ll accept, and what they call things are more consequential than they might appear.
That’s partly why “one-sided monogamy” landed with such force. It’s not that the underlying dynamic is new — asymmetric expectations in relationships have existed across every culture and century. What’s new is the branding. Giving an old double standard a modern, consent-adjacent name doesn’t transform it into something mutual. It just makes it harder to argue with at the dinner table.
Which, perhaps, is exactly the point.
