C/D LENA DUNHAM (THE DEFINITIVE POLL)

She is basically a bully. That was the word I was looking for so long.

Not to be all "shut up and sing," but if Shonda Rimes or Paul Thomas Anderson have wacky stories, they put it into their work and avoid these things.

People criticized her show for lacking POC (it's Brooklyn, a fair argument in my opinion) and she responded by having goddam Glover being a republican asshole/useless character/fuck buddy for 3 episodes, after which Lena's obviously triumph over the situation (he liked guns! what a wacko lol). That should have been the red flag: she won't take no as an answer at al.

i liked her and defended her until this, despite the bullshit white feminism crap
i cant deal w/ the shit about unrepentantly outing her sister

i didnt defend her white feminism bs, just to be clear. defended her against body critics and other stupid sexist crap

can't believe it took the national for people to wake up about this, how many people read this and didn't mind at all?

yo have you ever read stephen king's It

Um, presumably her family, editors, several dozen reviewers... xp

I know ILM loves to hate the national but jeez xxp

first tao lin, now this

where are all the wholesome obnoxiously confessional terrible person on paper millennial artists

Hannah did not triumph over Glover in that storyline, she looked like an ass. As is frequently the case on Girls.

I said Lena not Hannah.

Hey you guys are being totally unfair what about the Hispanic doorman that Shoshanna had sex with

Glover's character was not worse than any of the other characters. If she introduced one black character and had him be perfect that would be more racist and dehumanizing, bc humans in her universe are flawed and selfish

at least other white characters had the benefit of being useful to the storyline or even present.

Glover didn't really bother me. Hannah's mishandling of their relationship was p funny.

useful? storyline? this is a show with the thinnest of plot arcs

when anyone *announces* their "rage spiral" to millions i suggest firing your fucking therapist and becoming a Catholic

If only she'd responded to her critics by letting them direct the show entirely

Man that tweet really was the worst. Everybody back up, Lena Dunham has an emotion!

Lol I like to know what shape people's emotions take

It gave me a laughter triangle

how old are you people

7

you consider someone an extension of yourself and think you can do anything you want with them and their life

― jello my future biafriend (roxymuzak), Monday, November 3, 2014 12:09 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm

guilty lols

Kids masturbate at age 7?

no

yo have you ever read stephen king's It

― da croupier

yeah there is some...interesting shit in there

best selling book of 1986

Kids masturbate at age 7?

― benbbag, Monday, November 3, 2014 10:49 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Claim One (explicit): Fetuses masturbate. It turns out that in a much-cited 1987 letter published in the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine called “Sonographic observation of in utero fetal masturbation,” Dr. Israel Meizner reported seeing a fetus behaving “in a fashion resembling masturbation movements” over the course of 15 minutes. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of a fetal ‘masturbation’ in utero,” said Meizner. OK. So that’s one case. Anything else? Actually, there is! In 1996 two Italian doctors published a letter (“Ultrasonographic observation of a female fetus’ sexual behavior in utero”) in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in which they described observing a fetus making “masturbation movements.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/20/the_science_of_masturbating_fetuses/

apparently she also said that 'TMI' is a sexist expression.

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

― jello my future biafriend (roxymuzak), Monday, 3 November 2014 02:50 (20 hours ago) Permalink

This is what I posted on the FB link of a friend who was decrying the media's reaction to this, back in the morning: "First I'm hearing about this. First gut reaction - without really knowing everything about the larger reaction to the reveal - is "why put this in your memoir at all"?"

Like, really, no-one needed to know this.

I don't know. I'm not a Lena stan or hater - I've never watched Girls and am not particularly interested in her whole trip, but this ain't gonna be the thing that makes me want to explore her art, and I suspect that others on the fence will feel the same way.

do I have to post this quote again

'I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out.'

went on well past the age of 7

Is that 17 the one that garnered the typo correction from the right-wing blog, or is that in the book?

that ... is weird but doesn't sound like she was actually touching her sister sexually.

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.

― Don A Henley And Get Over It (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, November 2, 2014 9:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'it continued' -- their weird relationship and her manipulative behavior, yes. but touching her sister inappropriately, apparently not

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.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/8e3408fa0ecf161f19afe66c65baedc4/tumblr_needai8Xu31qd6pzuo2_r1_500.png

and according to this it probably wasn't inappropriate touching: http://www.safersociety.org/uploads/WP075-DoChildren.pdf

Questions about relationships and sexual behavior, menstruation and pregnancy. Experimentation with same-age children, often during games, kissing, touching, exhibitionism and role-playing. Private self stimulation. u ncommon: Adult-like sexual interactions, discussing specific sexual acts or public self stimulation.

you probably should have read the excerpt before you quoted it.

Experimentation with same-age children

Thanks, gyac - wasn't sure which was in the printed version.

but regardless none of her behavior crosses into the threshold of 'adult-like sexual interactions, discussing specific sexual acts or public self stimulation'

and while the age diff is somewhat out of the ordinary i dont entirely think her sister's tweet is wrong either, about pathologizing childhood behavior

i don't get why she included it bc i think she's stuck to this absurd idea of 'total honesty' that doesn't allow for, you know, selective candor ... and it's totally something that i imagine I would, were i a parent who was aware of it, use as an opportunity to explain boundaries. but im not exactly convinced this is a sex crime or something ... its self-revealing but more about the flaws in her artistic process (and in her personal relationships)

would your reaction be the same if that paragraph was written by adam driver

RE:The Correction Note

They mistakenly cited the pebble incident as happening when Lena was 17.

i guess what i'm resisting in the criticisms here is: 1. the obvious misogynist critics who were waiting for any chance to shit on her & hints of impropriety like this provide a really awesome opening, because who doesn't hate a child molester? and 2. i think one should be very careful about jumping to conclusions when it comes to children's 'sexual' behavior considering the extremely fine and arbitrary line between 'normal' and 'abnormal' and 'abusive' / witch hunt potential etc

idk, I'm not really interested about discussing when it is or isn't ok to touch a one year-old child's vagina, or examining exactly why people feel the need to defend this behaviour so strongly.

"defend this behaviour"

"so strongly"

"behaviour"

D-40 otm

dunham has received tons of misogynist criticism and kevin d williamson may well have not bothered to read a memoir by a male writer/director, but as far as the non-rightwing blogosphere goes if a dude wrote about doing this shit to a little sister it seems quite plausible the criticism would be even more vociferous. can't imagine jezebel would look the other way if word got out Josh Radnor was saying this shit.