C/D LENA DUNHAM (THE DEFINITIVE POLL)

fuck yes. after reading her book, i really wanted to see her do more movies/novels outside of the GIRLS universe

So The National Review has seized upon parts of Dunham's book wherein she describes how, at the age of seven, she...did something bad with her little sister, and other conservative blogs are running with it.

She was scheduled to do a book signing at Antwerp's book fair (Belgium) today, but she cancelled at the last moment and had to fly back to the US for a "medical emergency", I just read on the local news sites here.

Jeez! That second link of yours. Please warn next time. 'Register now and get our new book "how liberals violate all ten commandments"' and a video "Are all men rapists?" :-/

I thought the words "Conservative Blog" were warning enough...but, yeah, YIKES.

ALSO:

Correction note: This article has been modified to correct a typo in the book excerpt incorrectly listing Dunham’s age as seventeen.

This story changes somewhat when 17 is used instead of 7.

this is particularly vile and heinous even by the not-particularly-high standards of the national review.

I don't want to form an opinion without reading the chapter in question (no morbs) but from what I've heard about it, it does sound like a weird lack of boundaries for a 7 year old, and not a cute quirky story to tell at all. I may have gotten inaccurate accounts of the story tho. didn't she out her sister against her will to their parents? Just kind of a crap sister tbh

tbf most everything dunham has said publically or created artistically on the topic of family relationships strongly suggests she was/is a crap sister

Ok so she describes herself as using the tricks of a sexual predator against her sister in the chapter. Masturbated next to her, "looked inside" her (sort of indistinct, but the description makes it sound like surely she put her fingers inside her),and bribed her with candy to let her kiss her on the mouth for 5 seconds. It's mind boggling to me that she seemingly (from the tone and her responses) thought this was a cute, quirky anecdote

"And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid’s vagina, well, congrats to you."

Thank u lena

Tricks of a sexual predator = her words not mine btw

Looking forward to woody allen rushing to her defense

tbf most everything dunham has said publically or created artistically on the topic of family relationships strongly suggests she was/is a crap sister nut raised in an insane environment.

Is that a defense or

tbh I have ~suspicions~ about how those rocks ended up there

i think she knew how this passage would come across. she describes, at an early age, reacting to vulnerability by being controlling, even exploitative. the implications of this aren't something she shies away from, really, they are implied. it seems like she is being honest, not searching for a cute, quirky anecdote. she's a writer, not just a television celebrity.

Pebbles... In my vagina?

Sounds like she grew up in a pretty sexually weird environment, and her tone in describing it betrays the same slight gap in self-awareness that she shows about a lot of other things -- letting you know she "gets it" yet not quite getting it. Her show manages to be good in spite of that character flaw though. I don't think she's Woody Allen, there's still a huge difference between a seven year old preying on a child and an adult preying on a child imo, especially when they're living in an environment where the boundaries aren't clear.

oh Christ, the conviction stands huh

Actually, IDK, reading the passage itself disturbs me:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/lena-dunham-responds-to-sex-abuse-claims

It's not just what she did as a "weird seven year old" but the way she glibly describes it, even throwing in "sexual predator" with what she seems to think is irony (because you know, ha ha, it's obviously not ACTUALLY sexual abuse). Wonder how her sister remembers it. Like, I could forgive someone for having that in their past as a regrettable thing, but it's her seeming lack of any real discomfort with it that bothers me.

i didn't know til now that dunham outed her sister to her parents. what a dick move.

hurting otm, the way she recounts this weird childhood tale for the wacky edginess of it all ("SO WEIRD") is very grim

im sure she doesnt remember this particular incident cause she was only 1; im sure she remembers the other stuff tho

and yeah, a one year old stuffing things into her vagina is a huge red flag and a possible sign of sexual abuse. feel like the implications of the story are worse than the actual story, which is already pretty bad tbh

i saw an article where grace said something about lena always treating her (grace's) personal life like it was her own property. so fucked up

“Basically, it’s like I can’t keep any of my own secrets and I consider Grace to be an extension of me, and therefore I couldn’t handle the fact that she’s a very private person with her own value system and her own aesthetic and that we do different things.”

^^actual dunham quote. again the fact she thinks like this at all makes her a terrible person but the fact that she then BRAGS ABOUT IT IN PUBLIC holy shit i am glad not to have anyone like this in my life

the way she consistently makes her oversharing and transgressing of others' boundaries seem like a cute quirk...this is her "thing" isn't it, all in the name of "honesty"

“Basically, it’s like I can’t keep any of my own secrets and I consider Grace to be an extension of me, and therefore I couldn’t handle the fact that she’s a very private person with her own value system and her own aesthetic and that we do different things.”
ok so this has just caught my attention -- i have been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about people like lena dunham (i don't know much about her personally) and that is precisely it
life vultures!

she's nothing but consistent, all of her characters seem to treat other people like bit players in her own story

fwiw:

Grace Dunham @simongdunham · 5m 5 minutes ago

As a queer person: i'm committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful
0 replies 4 retweets 22 favorites
Grace Dunham @simongdunham · 9m 9 minutes ago

heteronormativity deems certain behaviours harmful, and others "normal"; the state and media are always invested in maintaining that
0 replies 8 retweets 26 favorites

I think it's possible to agree with that and still be a little grossed out by Lena about this though.

such a shitty explanation. you consider someone an extension of yourself and think you can do anything you want with them and their life as you would with your own body and life? GET HELP, ASSHOLE xp

She sounds like she is actually a narcissist, like in the pathological sense.

the assertion that decrying abuse is heteronormative, and the idea that abusive behaviors should be defined by the amount of harm done according to the survivor - both fucked up imo

I'm p much against calling a 7yo exploring an infant's body "predatory" or "abuse" - it's definitely sort of weird and not appropriate but kids that age are weird and inappropriate. I blame her parents.

her public persona is absolutely one of a "hilariously" oblivious narcissist. that's the joke.

something weird about how she seems to embody both the most negative and positive stereotypes about millenials

I'm sure a lot of the right wing backlash is being generated by the slightly ambiguous rape story in the book. Right wing dudes are like bloodhounds for anything that looks remotely like a "false rape accusation." Also I believe the perp is a "campus Republican."

this could be no big deal to Grace, but behavior that's normal-ish between siblings doesn't mean that it's acceptable as behavior. people normalize all kinds of shit.

The scene in which she actually looks at her sister's vagina is pretty innocuous, it's really the other stuff combined with that that is more eyebrow raising.

Masturbated next to her,

wait don't we have a thread about this

I'm just baffled that a seven-year-old could be construed as being semantically capable of sexual abuse.

its the combo of stuff thats alarming, although putting your fingers in an infants vagina is imo in and of itself alarming/red flag and it was p bad parenting to not question why it happened (which she explicitly states her mom did not do and just removed the pebbles from grace's vagina silently). its just a disturbing-weird story told as if its a quirky-weird story which compounds the disturbing quality

young kids absolutely sexually abuse younger/other kids

i haven't read what she wrote but idk what sort of tone you should take when you talk about something horrible + taboo you did to someone else when you weren't old enough to fully understand what you were doing

or should you just not ever talk about it to anyone?

i feel like this could as easily be innocuous as it could be abusive, idk. my understanding was kids sometimes do this shit?

maybe not the tone of a cute anecdote xp

yeah I don't think that a) Lena's actions were motivated by sexual gratification and b) why they may have not been in the infant's best interests it didn't cause her any mental or physical harm so "sexual abuse" seems like an extreme label

i don't think she thinks it was OK of her to see her sister as an extension of herself. i also don't think she is "bragging" about anything wtf. i think she seems reflective, even if she isn't writing it in this overtly apologetic way.

don't disagree that children can sexually abuse other children, and i wouldn't by any means be causal or dismissive about this sort of thing if it happened between children entrusted to my care. but lena's modus operandi is transparent, confessional writing so obviously she is going to share stuff that makes her look awful. that's the point of her art. it seems unfair to seize upon it, as if she is an especially awful person rather than just an especially honest one.

kids do sometimes do this shit and they need to learn that its fucked up or they are going to grow up continuing to violate boundaries - like outing people against their will and failing to see them as autonomous people

i work with 4 year olds and they understand body boundaries and know that you don't pry open other people's vaginas

feel the need to make it clear this never happened to me, ha, but i feel like her callous retelling of the story/treating people around her she supposedly cares about as material for her 'art' could easily be the more messed up thing about this situation...im not up on the latest child psych or anything but