C/D LENA DUNHAM (THE DEFINITIVE POLL)

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

thats another "thats so lena" thing she addresses in her art

I'm still more nauseated by the angry sexist garbage directed at Lena Dunham than anything she writes

(not by ppl in this conversation to be clear)

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

yeah this is true, kids learn their boundaries about theirs and others bodies pretty early. I just don't think Lena's violation of this boundary was sexually motivated, more a simple extension of her larger "I have no boundaries" narcissism bullshit.

im grossed out by both. one doesnt have to outweigh the other. fucked up shit is fucked up shit

yeah it's gross. if I was her parent there would have been a very stern talking-to/punishment administered

also i think "keep it private" is a good tactic for very personal anecdotes -- but that is my personal opinion and clearly lena d (and lots of other people ) disagree

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.

it's exactly this sort of justification that most irritates me. just because your artistic MO is to be an awful person doesn't make you any less awful or excuse your behaviour! and "honesty" is pure get-out clause

Sometimes there is a reason an artistic MO has not previously been employed all that much/successfully.

we're friends with a couple who are kind of 'transparent' in this same way and i sense it's a real ego trip for them (and ppl like them i think) to lay it all out there, confessional, 100% unfiltered style. 'aren't we shocking and fascinating' etc. i think it's a subconscious thing though.

actually i know other people like that too. they're generally the sorts who always hang around like they're posing for a promo teaser poster for a basic cable drama's upcoming third season.

Sometimes there is a reason an artistic MO has not previously been employed all that much/successfully.

there's a word for these people

baby boomers

or at least, the trend toward super confessional writing started in the 60s i think. dunham isn't doing anything new.

Yeah but it's the #nofilter thing that sets her apart, combined with the equally unserious way she treats almost every subject.

xp it is totally an ego trip but good writing has come out of it too. to enforce a "keep it private" standard, even through social censure, seems like it would be problematic.

also is she an "awful person" because of this thing she did or because of her method of talking about it as an adult? is it possible to be an awful person at 7 years old? also, whatever boundary issues she had then, are they related to the boundary issues she has now?

yeah it's gross. if I was her parent there would have been a very stern talking-to/punishment administered

― Οὖτις, Monday, November 3, 2014 12:51 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be fair then she might have grown up to be a lawyer instead of a critically acclaimed millionaire media mogul and auteur, so pick your battles

is it possible to be an awful person at 7 years old?

yes. unfortunately.

also is she an "awful person" because of this thing she did or because of her method of talking about it as an adult?
the flippant way with which she refers to her serious (at least according to some, me included) intrusions on her sister's body / personal space / personal life are pretty awful to the uninitiated observer / person who doesn't buy into her narcissism as genius thing.

the act of the child was an invasion that should have been dealt with by her parents, but i don't believe it makes her a sexual predator or whatever. i also don't think you should excuse it because it was somehow a brick in the foundation of her as a comedy persona. stuff like this could have been profoundly damaging to her sister (and perhaps was in ways that can't be appropriately gauged) who is a human being with her own rights to her body.

*is pretty awful.

agree with the second part of your statement of course. i don't agree that it was a "flippant' characterization, necessarily. i don't think her show is flippant either.

I guess I should buy this book, at least.

also lots of people read this book and nobody was talking about this section until the fucking national review decided to use it to defame her, who they hate because she identifies as a feminist.

if you're tempted to defend her (just) because she's become another rightwing culture war hate object -- don't

well a lot of the people who buy the book probably buy the 'confessional truth makes everything ok' vibe xp

kevin williamson and ben shapiro have a line in constant miserable cruelty. it would have and could have been anybody.

xp to TS - yeah, flippant was my word given my interpretation of what i read and my admittedly limited exposure to her work.

and i didn't mean you explicitly in the second point, that was mostly a reaction to the notion upthread that if her parents had intervened on her freedom as a child that she wouldn't have become who she is

yeah, i was just fuckin around

obv it's better to be a happy lawyer than a sad celebrity

baby boomers

― Treeship, Monday, November 3, 2014 10:06 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or at least, the trend toward super confessional writing started in the 60s i think. dunham isn't doing anything new.

― Treeship, Monday, November 3, 2014 10:07 AM (28 minutes ago)

Sorry, wrong generation.

yeah you're right. even the so-called confessional poets were born in the 20s i think.

Anne Sexton (born 1923)
Sylvia Plath (born 1932)
Jack Kerouac (born 1922)
Allen Ginsberg (born 1926)

super confessional style probably is easiest to lay at the feet of the Beat writers (from the 1950s) and confessional poets like Sexton and Plath (also 1950s)

yeah this seems mostly like a tone problem -- the flippancy of it is off putting but i'm not that offended by what she did when she was 7

the stuff about off putting her sister is really weird and she doesn't seem to do much internal criticism of that beyond explaining why it happened (saw her as an "extension")

also lots of people read this book and nobody was talking about this section

maybe the rest is actually more narcissistic, just not as exploitative, so it was overshadowed

OMG, I'm going to vomit. Wait...parents don't explain sexual abuse to their six- or seven-year-old child? Mine did! Then again, I grew up near a famous red light district and was very clear on what sex ABUSE was. That said, I don't necessarily blame the child for abusing, but decent parenting could have prevented this.

I had a sister eight years younger than me, ergo I KNOW. I had to change her diapers.

yeah me too. congrats. different people have different experiences though.

serious, non trolling question: should writers, and memoirists especially, strive to not be narcissistic? if so, why? it seems like that word -- especially its euphemism, "navel gazing" -- is lobbed at any book or art object people don't like or understand.

i understand that as a human it is better -- not just for others, but healthier for oneself -- to be other-centered. but in terms of writing, there's a lot people can discover by examining themselves from lenses other than "how can i be better to others".

parents don't explain sexual abuse to their six- or seven-year-old child?

any decent parent explains to their child that their body is theirs and that nobody else should be touching it pretty much from the time they can talk ime. Dunham has shitty parents.

Her memoir style (and I saw her read from it last month) reminds me a lot of David Sedaris, and there's a similar approach to "awful" family and self behavior.

what did david sedaris do wrong?

serious, non trolling question: should writers, and memoirists especially, strive to not be narcissistic? if so, why? it seems like that word -- especially its euphemism, "navel gazing" -- is lobbed at any book or art object people don't like or understand.

I don't think they necessarily should. But I also think a narcissistic person will by definition fail at not being narcissistic. It's like asking a fool not to be foolish.

I do think, especially considering an adult remembering a past memory, should accompany the controversial memory by her present day views on things, to put things in context.

I played the doctor nurse game when 5 or 6. Thinking back that was probably on the edge of what adult me thinks is tolerable for children to do. Hey ho. But if I'd write the memories I have of that down in a book, I'd write it from my adult perspective and 'value' it in a moral way. I've not read Dunham's book so am not comfortable judging her, not knowing if she did this or not.