Lena Dunham angry over being called a "sexual predator"
Lena Dunham angry over being called a "sexual predator"
#1Lena Dunham angry over being called a "sexual predator"
Posted: 11/2/14 at 11:59pm
...after calling herself a sexual predator.
Can she just stop already? Sure, some kids do what she did. They don't write about it in a memoir and then get pissed when people question it.
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FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#2Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 12:02amWhy can't she resist dignifying right wing trolls with any response at all? Is that something a narcissist is incapable of? And when she goes all, "You OLD MEN probably have predator secrets" it's like one degree away from the Scientology handbook.
#3Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 12:02amI *love* Girls, but I kinda agree with you JG.
#4Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 8:38am
I think one of the biggest problems was other than the slightly odd behavior, was that one of right wing sites says she was seventeen, rather than seven, when she did it.
I have a feeling in the environment she was raised in, it was not that odd what she did - which speaks as much to her parents as to her. There is a reason she has few boundaries.
#5Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 10:06am
She should never have phrased what she did in her typical, Dunham-ish exaggeration-of-reality for comic effect, using a "trigger" phrase like "sexual predator" in an offhand manner.
That was stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. (And, also, insensitive.)
Once having done it, she should never, ever, EVER have responded to Kevin Williamson of the National Review. And by further responding with a Twitter "rage spiral," she only feeds the Outrage Machine.
On top of everything, she said she was "nauseated" by Woody Allen bak during that discussion, so her use of words here is even more stupid.
Did I say she was handling this in a stupid manner?
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#6Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 10:13amThe only reason she is talking about this is that she is desperate for attention. She moves from being raped by a Republican to molesting her sister. If she wasn't from a rich family, nobody would be paying her any attention.
LarryD2
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/1/14
#7Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 2:05pmI have to agree with PalJoey's point. Dunham's supposedly tongue-in-cheek, aren't I edgy? self-description as a "sexual predator" is really insensitive and just plain foolish. Whatever actually happened, she did herself no favors by trying to use such loaded language to apparently make a joke.
Sutton Ross
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/20/13
#8Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 2:34pm
Lena Dunham writes something in her "memoir".
The world reacts.
She bitches about said world reacting.
#9Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 2:59pmI think I am going to hate-read it while on vacation.
#10Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 4:29pm
Lena Dunham's sister Grace Tweeted her responses:
===
Grace Dunham @simongdunham
As a queer person: i'm committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful
12:01 PM - 3 Nov 2014
===
Grace Dunham @simongdunham
heteronormativity deems certain behaviours harmful, and others "normal"; the state and media are always invested in maintaining that
11:57 AM - 3 Nov 2014
===
Grace Dunham @simongdunham
2day, like every other day, is a good day to think about how we police the sexualities of young women, queer, and trans people
1:02 PM - 3 Nov 2014
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#11Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/3/14 at 5:05pm
"As a queer person: i'm committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful"
Yes, unfortunately the law thinks differently.
#12Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 2:51amI hate the word "heteronormative."
#13Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 3:05amI'm guilty of using it on at least a weekly basis. Though, to be fair, not always sincerely.
#14Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 7:09am
"Yes, unfortunately the law thinks differently."
About a 7-year-old? God, I hope not! Particularly not when there is no report of violent coercion.
PJ is right re Dunham's careless use of language and other foolishness, but let's not confuse her recent errors with actual child molestation by an adult.
(At the risk of oversharing, I myself was introduced to certain sexual practices at the age of 6, by two boys who lived next door. They were 6 and 7, I believe. Was I "molested"? Hell, I wasn't even harmed. I certainly hope we're not going to start calling such youthful experimentation "sexual predation"!)
#15Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 8:36amI don't think anyone wishes to criminalize youthful curiosity, but there certainly are predatory children out there. I'm not saying Dunham was one of them, but they do exist.
FindingNamo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
#16Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 11:50am
I certainly hope we're not going to start calling such youthful experimentation "sexual predation"!
The upcoming generation has been indoctrinated with phrases like "trigger words" and "rape culture." Unfortunately for Dunham, she was just ahead of the curve of all this at Oberlin. She missed out on EVERYTHING remotely sexual being "perverted" and perpetrated by "creepers."
#17Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 4:32pm
I think Lena Dunham (whose material I can sometimes enjoy) thinks of herself as a Woody Allen or a Sarah Silverman, but is honestly more like an intellectual Andy Dick- someone who is not really exploring their dark side and the dark side of human nature and mental illness to say something insightful, but merely mining it for its most uncomfortable depths.
I can never tell if her material is satirical or sincere.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#18Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 4:48pm
"Intellectual Andy Dick" made me howl.
Now, I haven't read this book and have no intention of reading it, but this comment i just read about it on Jezebel is something else. Is this all really in the book, too?
Why are we acting like this is only about her touching her 1 year old sister's vagina when she was 7 and not also about emotionally coercing her sister into sleeping in her bed and then masturbating while she sleeps? And about paying her sister in candy to give her long kisses on the lips? And about paying her sister in quarters to let her put 'biker chick' makeup on her and calling her 'sexual property'? And about watching whatever her little sister wants as long as her sister would 'relax on her' while they watched tv? Why are we pretending this is about once incident and not a decade of behavior documented by Dunham in her own book? You're leaving a lot out, and I'm not sure why.
I'm not even sure what to say.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#20Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 5:09pm
Yes, sigh. It's all in the book.
I think she thought--
I don't know what the fu ck I think she thought.
#21Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 6:12pmI find her vulgar.
#22Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 6:31pm
So then she apologized.
ABC NEWS: Lena Dunham Apologizes for 'Sexual Predator' Section in Her Book
Borstalboy
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
#22Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 7:31pmI really don't think she should have apologized. If she hadn't responded to the troll, none of this would have gotten any publicity. Some would argue that's exactly what she wanted, but I doubt it.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#23Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 9:12pm
So famous
So easily
So soon
Is not the wisest thing to be
#24Lena Dunham angry over being called a
Posted: 11/4/14 at 11:17pmI love Lena and will definitely read the book come winter break but this baffles me. What did she think was going to come of putting this out in the world? Knowing her the book is smeared with sex through every chapter, but she had to have known this would garner all the attention. It doesn't seem to me like she was prepared to respond to it at all.
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