Curiosity about and exploration of our bodies is perfectly normal when we're children but I can't help thinking that the anecdotes about her 17 year old self are just there for shock value really. It's her schtick - to be a controversial/sexual yet aspirational figure. (That's how I see her and her Management selling it anyway).
I like Girls and agree completely with the poster who said that it's a complete irony that Adam Driver has had the most success. Dunham herself has complained that her compatriots have not been offered diverse enough roles since the show (I can't be arsed to search online for that but I do remember reading it).
This book seems as ill advised as her photoshoot for Vogue which was just absolutely ridiculous in its hypocrisy. She is not a fashion model and should not be attempting to be, even in a blast of irony (which it surely was).
I think she is definitely in danger of imminently disappearing up her own fundament.
In her book Not That Kind Of Girl, Lena talks of her relationship with her little sister Grace, who is 5-6 years younger than her.
She says that she took "perverse pleasure" in telling Grace bad news, because Lena wanted to feel needed by her and would comfort her afterwards. She would bribe her little sister for her affection, including giving her sweets in return for long kisses, and would do "anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl" to get affection.
They shared a bed until Lena was 17, and Grace would beg every night to sleep together, Lena would make a big deal out of saying no, then relent. This is psychologically similar to crushing her with bad news then comforting her. Lena would masturbate next to her little sister, which is the most disturbing thing because it's actually criminal.
The excerpt that has got the most attention is the part where she recounts prying open her one year old sister's vagina as a seven year old, and finding that the baby has supposedly put small pebbles in there as a "prank".
I personally think that the above incident in isolation isn't that bad but combined with her emotional manipulation of her little sister, masturbating next to her and pathologically craving her affection it seems like Lena was a very abnormal girl. If she was a man I bet she would have developed into a criminal. Lena thinking that a one year old is capable of pulling a prank like stuffing pebbles into her vagina to shock people in anticipation of someone looking is odd. One year olds don't have the dexterity, motivation or intelligence to do something like that. It is abnormal to imagine that babies and children have adult-like motivations rather than being innocent. .
This is what bothers me the most. I've seen so many comments on how a child that age would not have the dexterity or awareness to be able to insert anything into their vagina. Kids that age would be more inclined to shove things into their mouth, and probably miss.
If the story was made up to shock, then it's sick and weird.
But if her baby sister did have pebbles inserted into her vagina, then someone put them there. And that's worrying.
It is possible that she remembered it wrong.
I've seen a few social workers comment on this, and say that had authorities been aware of these incidents (pebbles, bribing the sister to kiss her, masturbating next to her) they would have assumed these were signs that sexual abuse was taking place within the family.
Having said that, Lena was aggressively supportive of Dylan Farrow when she claimed
Woody Allen abused her, even thought the New York State’s Department of Social Services investigated the Dylan Farrow case and found “no credible evidence was found that the child named in this report has been abused or maltreated.”
So Lena can't call one person a child abuser when their guilt is in doubt* and
then complain when other people do the same.
* I don't know if Woody Allen is guilty or innocent of the child abuse charges,
only that there has never been enough evidence to convict him of any
such charges.
Actually, if you read details from the Woody Allen case then it is very damning. They stopped it to protect Dylan, some lie detector test results Woody took conveniently went missing, he was orderer to therapy.
But sadly a lot of people will always believe that someone is innocent just because they are a fan. No wonder it took so long for Dylan to speak up. We don't know for sure but reading about it wasn't pretty.
Actually, if you read details from the Woody Allen case then it is very damning. They stopped it to protect Dylan, some lie detector test results Woody took conveniently went missing, he was orderer to therapy.
Which details, though? A physical exam of Dylan in August 9 1992 found
no evidence of sexual abuse.
As for the inappropriate behaviour:
Orth et al. insist Allen was being treated for “inappropriately intense” behavior with Dylan. A child psychologist was talking to both parents, and her relevant quote about Allen’s behavior is, in full, “I did not see it as sexual, but I saw it as inappropriately intense because it excluded everybody else.” Playing favorites among children is not good. Attaching the whiff of sex to it is worse.
Allen was wrong to favour Dylan at the expense of his other kids (adopted
and biological). And some of his behaviour towards
her comes across as odd and arguably inappropriate (putting his
head in Dylan's lap? It might be innocent, but it still seems wrong to
do that).
It doesn't mean he sexually abused her. Of course, the gruesome irony is Allen's
former favorite now hates him because she believes he did abuse her.
But sadly a lot of people will always believe that someone is innocent just because they are a fan. No wonder it took so long for Dylan to speak up. We don't know for sure but reading about it wasn't pretty.
I admit I am a fan of Allen's work, but I know he isn't a saint. He shouldn't have
sued for custody of Dylan shortly after the abuse accusation-that was
very insenstive. But saying "I don't believe there's enough evidence to
say Woody Allen has sexually abused children" is different to saying "I don't believe
Woody Allen has ever done things a father should not do."
I've never liked her, never bought the hype about her. Always found her an annoying, spoilt, narcissistic woman who (judging by what she's written) is clearly not all there.
Dont know who she is but thats one hell of a messed up household!
And a very privileged one too, as this review points out:
Dunham has lived a life of extraordinary privilege, and she describes it in Not That Kind Of Girl—private schools, sleep-away camp, summer homes on Long Island, therapists from adolescence onward. Her privilege is so total that, like landed gentry in English novels or the super-wealthy who lounge on yachts off the coast of Connecticut, it’s not polite to discuss money, because wealth is just the given.
So maybe her wealthy, unconventional family didn't set the usual boundaries, and
Dunham lives in a bubble where talking about childhood sexual experimentation
isn't considered wrong. Certainly her life has
little in common with those of most American women. To, say, a farmer's
wife in Kansas, Dunham might as well come from another planet.
Also, she's a perfect hate figure for American conservatives- a wealthy, New
York liberal feminist.
I've been thinking that whatever happened it's not really Lena's fault. I blame bad parenting.
1) Having vaginas - including her mother's - plastered all over the home must have blurred the boundaries of what is normal and what isn't, and aroused her curiosity of things she might not have been interested yet.
2) The parents are those ultra-libtard types who live in a world where up is down, black is white, and crappy images of vaginas can make you a multi-millionaire and get you praised like you're the second coming of Da Vinci. To them, anything goes, and there is nothing wrong with their lifestyle. Can you imagine if a normal family of young children, without the status of being labelled as "artists", had images of vaginas all over their home?
3) If Lena did stroke her mother's vagina, that shows further eroding of normal boundaries, and her parents not correcting her or showing her that there is anything wrong with this. Plus what was the mother's bits doing out in the first place? ETA: Lena did stroke her mother's vagina, mistaking it for her hairless cat.
4) The mother didn't even question Lena when the one year old Grace had supposedly put pebbles into her own vagina. I agree with the above poster who said that Lena may have remembered this story wrong... inadvertently or otherwise.
5) The rest of the book shows Lena to have had an extremely privileged upbringing, and to this day she remains narcissistic and lacks self-awareness of how unusual her super-rich, super-liberal upbringing was.
6) Being an only child for nearly 6 years then having a baby sister come along must have been a shock for a spoiled only child. That's probably why she felt the need to have baby Grace's attention focused on herself, and craved to feel needed by her to the point of manipulating her emotionally and physically.
7) Grace essentially blaming people's reactions on prudery and narrowmindedness shows that she still thinks there's nothing wrong with her family, society is the problem. Everyone else is incorrect, not them. And she thinks that anything goes sexually, as long as no one is overtly harmed.
@Residents Fan - statements like "a physical exam found no evidence of sexual abuse" sound impressive, but such examinations can only tell if there are overt injuries and/or a lack of hymen. They're basically worthless in most circumstances but unfortunately impress juries and the public. If they are not accused of doing anything penetrative and/or causing injuries then such an exam is pointless. Also, girls can lose their hymens in ways that do not involve sex. But it's irrelevant in this case, as Dylan was not actually examined physically. The paediatrician who concluded that there was no evidence of sexual abuse never even saw Dylan. See #7 on the following list:
This is child sexual abuse. Rich or poor, famous or not, for a period of 10 years she acted incestuously and inappropriately to her sister. That her sister is gay is not surprising, if your sister flirts with you and touches you for a decade it's going to have a lasting effect on your sexual development.
If tomorrow a story ran about a 7 year old boy touching his 1 year old sister, the mother finding stones in the sister's private parts, it'd be a matter for the police, social services and the courts. But it's okay to lay next to your sister and masturbate or bribe them to kiss you with sweets? That's grooming, it's incest.
I am pretty sure it's universally considered wrong if a 7 year old is playing with their infant sibling's genitals, whether you're from New York or Kansas. Asking them to lay next to you so they watch TV while you play with yourself... that's just perverse.
I don't like her much but a bit of perspective would be nice.
Too right, children often feel the need to explore and compare their bodies (particularly if they are close like siblings often are). It's totally natural. Moral panic over.
Actually, if you read details from the Woody Allen case then it is very damning. They stopped it to protect Dylan, some lie detector test results Woody took conveniently went missing, he was orderer to therapy.
But sadly a lot of people will always believe that someone is innocent just because they are a fan. No wonder it took so long for Dylan to speak up. We don't know for sure but reading about it wasn't pretty.
The fact Dylan's brother came out and revealed that their mother, Mia Farrow, was constantly telling her children to say their father abused them speaks volumes to me. It's no open-and-shut case, and Mia Farrow comes across as perhaps worse than Woody Allen, especially if you know her entire life story.
The fact Dylan's brother came out and revealed that their mother, Mia Farrow, was constantly telling her children to say their father abused them speaks volumes to me. It's no open-and-shut case, and Mia Farrow comes across as perhaps worse than Woody Allen, especially if you know her entire life story.
Could you post a link or refer me to the site or book that can corroborate this. Thanks in advance:)
Here's another excerpt from the National Review Online review of Lena's book:
"She leads up to it with a long story about her childhood misuse of the word “rape” — she accuses her little sister of raping her and tells people that her father sticks a fork in her vagina when she misbehaves — and dwells on her lifelong fear of being raped."
Odd.
Also she apparently shared a bed with her parents until well into her adolescence, with her father getting up at 3 am every morning to carry her into the parent's bed. It sounds like Lena was allowed to do anything she wanted and her parents gave her no boundaries at all.
This is child sexual abuse. Rich or poor, famous or not, for a period of 10 years she acted incestuously and inappropriately to her sister. That her sister is gay is not surprising, if your sister flirts with you and touches you for a decade it's going to have a lasting effect on your sexual development.
If tomorrow a story ran about a 7 year old boy touching his 1 year old sister, the mother finding stones in the sister's private parts, it'd be a matter for the police, social services and the courts. But it's okay to lay next to your sister and masturbate or bribe them to kiss you with sweets? That's grooming, it's incest.
I am pretty sure it's universally considered wrong if a 7 year old is playing with their infant sibling's genitals, whether you're from New York or Kansas. Asking them to lay next to you so they watch TV while you play with yourself... that's just perverse.
I agree and I hope people don't flame you for linking Grace's lesbianism to her childhood. Presumably it can also happen the other way when a person is born lesbian/gay but abuse makes them heterosexual. Sexuality can be damaged.
It seems obvious that Lena's emotional tinkering of Grace - crushing her and then being the one to comfort her, making a point of withholding her affection then giving it after making Grace beg, and bribing Grace for her affection - would lead Grace to require the unconditional female love that she didn't receive from her sister. Also her first sexual experiences being with her sister would have left an impression on her, especially since that sister was manipulating her, and wasn't always emotionally honest/available.
In the NRO article, it mentions that Lena frequently uses "being in possession of a gay sister" (her words) as a get-out-of-jail-free card to be somewhat homophobic against lesbians.
She uses "lesbian" as a negative descriptive word, and uses stereotypes of lesbians:
She sneers at “girls with boyfriends who looked like lesbians,” at a man guilty of “dressing vaguely like a middle-aged lesbian,” etc. “Lesbian” is Dunham’s shorthand for “awful.” On Girls, one of the characters scoffs that “dates are for lesbians,” and Dunham describes a childhood fear that she would become “the militant lesbian leader of a motorcycle gang,”
@Residents Fan - statements like "a physical exam found no evidence of sexual abuse" sound impressive, but such examinations can only tell if there are overt injuries and/or a lack of hymen. They're basically worthless in most circumstances but unfortunately impress juries and the public. If they are not accused of doing anything penetrative and/or causing injuries then such an exam is pointless. Also, girls can lose their hymens in ways that do not involve sex. But it's irrelevant in this case, as Dylan was not actually examined physically. The paediatrician who concluded that there was no evidence of sexual abuse never even saw Dylan. See #7 on the following list:
Oh, I know a physical exam alone isn't enough to disprove sexual abuse- but there's enough info about this issue to at least say the issue of
Allen's guilt is doubt, (why did Frank Maco basically say "Allen's guilty
of a heinous crime, but we're not going to prosecute him because
it would traumatize Dylan?" Whatever happen to
someone being "innocent until successful prosecuted
and found guilty?")
which is why I believe it was unwise of Lena
Dunham to weigh in on this and imply "Allen's guilty-end of story".
We've wandered off a bit- here's an interesting article about the
Dunham issue here:
Dunham's story is not one of sexual exploration and she doesn't describe any sexual acts. The story she tells is one of bodily exploration; sex is not a part of it. Her story also includes her sister's own exploration in that it turns out her sister had been putting pebbles inside her own vagina (some small girls put things in their vaginas—toys, pebbles, Legos, etc—there is a case study of a 4 year old girl who put a Bratz doll in her vagina).
People who are attaching sex to these stories seem to equate the genitals with sex, but that's not how young children see their genitals. Dunham's story is not an uncommon one. The research (and any preschool or home with young children) is full of stories of childhood 'play' not so different than this one.
There's a difference between childhood curiosity and 'Drs and Nurses' type stuff and abuse. I think she crosses the line.
I could maybe understand if she was too young to know really what she was doing, but the stuff about her paying her sister to sleep next to her and then masturbating is a bit predatory. She also said she had a hairless cat and thought she was stroking it, but it was actually her Mum's vagina, oh please!
Mind you her parents are 'interesting' so maybe she thinks this is acceptable.
Here's another excerpt from the National Review Online review of Lena's book:
"She leads up to it with a long story about her childhood misuse of the word “rape” — she accuses her little sister of raping her and tells people that her father sticks a fork in her vagina when she misbehaves — and dwells on her lifelong fear of being raped."
Odd.
Also she apparently shared a bed with her parents until well into her adolescence, with her father getting up at 3 am every morning to carry her into the parent's bed. It sounds like Lena was allowed to do anything she wanted and her parents gave her no boundaries at all.
I agree and I hope people don't flame you for linking Grace's lesbianism to her childhood. Presumably it can also happen the other way when a person is born lesbian/gay but abuse makes them heterosexual. Sexuality can be damaged.
It seems obvious that Lena's emotional tinkering of Grace - crushing her and then being the one to comfort her, making a point of withholding her affection then giving it after making Grace beg, and bribing Grace for her affection - would lead Grace to require the unconditional female love that she didn't receive from her sister. Also her first sexual experiences being with her sister would have left an impression on her, especially since that sister was manipulating her, and wasn't always emotionally honest/available.
In the NRO article, it mentions that Lena frequently uses "being in possession of a gay sister" (her words) as a get-out-of-jail-free card to be somewhat homophobic against lesbians.
There's nature and nurture but there is also psychological conditioning/predatory grooming.
I am fairly certain if anyone had their sibling bribe them to kiss them, sleep next to them, masturbate next to them and had them refer to them as "less of a person, more of an extension of myself" they'd end up with some sexual issues in later life. It sounds like Lena is an abusive, controlling dom who used her sister as a prop to explore her own sexuality with, from exploring her genitalia to bribing her to kiss her to acting as a body pillow who had to listen and lie next to her sister while she played with herself. Perhaps what she actually needed was strong guidance and someone to stand up to her when she acted out like this, rather than buying her therapy sessions so she could write off her wrong actions with some cod psychology about insecurity and developing sibling relationships. She seems to have lived the live of Reilly while wanting to be Little Orphan Annie, lost in the world her parents can afford for her.
To be fair considering her parents art work it is not surprising she was sexually curious from an early age if they had works in progress or displays of their art around the house. However the idea of any sixteen year old girl lying next to their 10 year old sister while doing that... it's frankly just not right.
She uses "lesbian" as a negative descriptive word, and uses stereotypes of lesbians:
She sneers at “girls with boyfriends who looked like lesbians,” at a man guilty of “dressing vaguely like a middle-aged lesbian,” etc. “Lesbian” is Dunham’s shorthand for “awful.” On Girls, one of the characters scoffs that “dates are for lesbians,” and Dunham describes a childhood fear that she would become “the militant lesbian leader of a motorcycle gang,”
Thanks for filling me in.
The only one that seems that offensive is her use of the word 'lesbian' as a shorthand for 'awful'. Still, makes a change from gay men being offended in that way.
The only one that seems that offensive is her use of the word 'lesbian' as a shorthand for 'awful'. Still, makes a change from gay men being offended in that way.
... Sounds like a self hating, insecure bisexual person who has now caused their sibling sexual difficulties by victimising her and then using the sexual designation she may have contributed to forming as an insult.
@Residents Fan thanks for linking that article - some interesting comments on there. Despite the stupid article, the vast majority of the comments show that leftists are just as outraged as right-wingers - contrary to Lena trying to spin this as right-wing witch hunting.
Grace has said: '"Without getting into specifics," she said, "most of our fights have revolved around my feeling like Lena took her approach to her own personal life and made my personal life her property."'
Grace has been annoyed and upset that Lena used her life as material for her show, and feels like she can't have any secrets of her own without her sister sharing them.
Lena was also the one was also the one who outed Grace to their mother, which caused problem's in the sisters' relationship for the next two years.
Her complete disregard for her sister's feelings has me raising an eyebrow.
What I think will come of this is a woman who actually perhaps really thought all of this was OK and is only now finding out it's not and this may raise some huge questions about her own upbringing and the level of abuse (if any) she too may have experienced.
... Sounds like a self hating, insecure bisexual person who has now caused their sibling sexual difficulties by victimising her and then using the sexual designation she may have contributed to forming as an insult.
Agreed, I could imagine Lena having lesbian tendencies.
Comments
Curiosity about and exploration of our bodies is perfectly normal when we're children but I can't help thinking that the anecdotes about her 17 year old self are just there for shock value really. It's her schtick - to be a controversial/sexual yet aspirational figure. (That's how I see her and her Management selling it anyway).
I like Girls and agree completely with the poster who said that it's a complete irony that Adam Driver has had the most success. Dunham herself has complained that her compatriots have not been offered diverse enough roles since the show (I can't be arsed to search online for that but I do remember reading it).
This book seems as ill advised as her photoshoot for Vogue which was just absolutely ridiculous in its hypocrisy. She is not a fashion model and should not be attempting to be, even in a blast of irony (which it surely was).
I think she is definitely in danger of imminently disappearing up her own fundament.
This is what bothers me the most. I've seen so many comments on how a child that age would not have the dexterity or awareness to be able to insert anything into their vagina. Kids that age would be more inclined to shove things into their mouth, and probably miss.
If the story was made up to shock, then it's sick and weird.
But if her baby sister did have pebbles inserted into her vagina, then someone put them there. And that's worrying.
It is possible that she remembered it wrong.
I've seen a few social workers comment on this, and say that had authorities been aware of these incidents (pebbles, bribing the sister to kiss her, masturbating next to her) they would have assumed these were signs that sexual abuse was taking place within the family.
Actually, if you read details from the Woody Allen case then it is very damning. They stopped it to protect Dylan, some lie detector test results Woody took conveniently went missing, he was orderer to therapy.
But sadly a lot of people will always believe that someone is innocent just because they are a fan. No wonder it took so long for Dylan to speak up. We don't know for sure but reading about it wasn't pretty.
I saw her tweet that said "If you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid's vagina, well, congrats to you." Congrats to me then!!
Which details, though? A physical exam of Dylan in August 9 1992 found
no evidence of sexual abuse.
As for the inappropriate behaviour:
http://www.thenation.com/article/178457/why-woody-allen-deserves-benefit-doubt
Allen was wrong to favour Dylan at the expense of his other kids (adopted
and biological). And some of his behaviour towards
her comes across as odd and arguably inappropriate (putting his
head in Dylan's lap? It might be innocent, but it still seems wrong to
do that).
It doesn't mean he sexually abused her. Of course, the gruesome irony is Allen's
former favorite now hates him because she believes he did abuse her.
I admit I am a fan of Allen's work, but I know he isn't a saint. He shouldn't have
sued for custody of Dylan shortly after the abuse accusation-that was
very insenstive. But saying "I don't believe there's enough evidence to
say Woody Allen has sexually abused children" is different to saying "I don't believe
Woody Allen has ever done things a father should not do."
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts
There is no doubt in my mind that Woody Allen did what he was accused of, his version of events just don't add up. But this thread isn't about Allen.
And a very privileged one too, as this review points out:
http://www.avclub.com/article/lena-dunham-has-it-all-210401
So maybe her wealthy, unconventional family didn't set the usual boundaries, and
Dunham lives in a bubble where talking about childhood sexual experimentation
isn't considered wrong. Certainly her life has
little in common with those of most American women. To, say, a farmer's
wife in Kansas, Dunham might as well come from another planet.
Also, she's a perfect hate figure for American conservatives- a wealthy, New
York liberal feminist.
1) Having vaginas - including her mother's - plastered all over the home must have blurred the boundaries of what is normal and what isn't, and aroused her curiosity of things she might not have been interested yet.
2) The parents are those ultra-libtard types who live in a world where up is down, black is white, and crappy images of vaginas can make you a multi-millionaire and get you praised like you're the second coming of Da Vinci. To them, anything goes, and there is nothing wrong with their lifestyle. Can you imagine if a normal family of young children, without the status of being labelled as "artists", had images of vaginas all over their home?
3) If Lena did stroke her mother's vagina, that shows further eroding of normal boundaries, and her parents not correcting her or showing her that there is anything wrong with this. Plus what was the mother's bits doing out in the first place? ETA: Lena did stroke her mother's vagina, mistaking it for her hairless cat.
4) The mother didn't even question Lena when the one year old Grace had supposedly put pebbles into her own vagina. I agree with the above poster who said that Lena may have remembered this story wrong... inadvertently or otherwise.
5) The rest of the book shows Lena to have had an extremely privileged upbringing, and to this day she remains narcissistic and lacks self-awareness of how unusual her super-rich, super-liberal upbringing was.
6) Being an only child for nearly 6 years then having a baby sister come along must have been a shock for a spoiled only child. That's probably why she felt the need to have baby Grace's attention focused on herself, and craved to feel needed by her to the point of manipulating her emotionally and physically.
7) Grace essentially blaming people's reactions on prudery and narrowmindedness shows that she still thinks there's nothing wrong with her family, society is the problem. Everyone else is incorrect, not them. And she thinks that anything goes sexually, as long as no one is overtly harmed.
@Residents Fan - statements like "a physical exam found no evidence of sexual abuse" sound impressive, but such examinations can only tell if there are overt injuries and/or a lack of hymen. They're basically worthless in most circumstances but unfortunately impress juries and the public. If they are not accused of doing anything penetrative and/or causing injuries then such an exam is pointless. Also, girls can lose their hymens in ways that do not involve sex. But it's irrelevant in this case, as Dylan was not actually examined physically. The paediatrician who concluded that there was no evidence of sexual abuse never even saw Dylan. See #7 on the following list:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts
If tomorrow a story ran about a 7 year old boy touching his 1 year old sister, the mother finding stones in the sister's private parts, it'd be a matter for the police, social services and the courts. But it's okay to lay next to your sister and masturbate or bribe them to kiss you with sweets? That's grooming, it's incest.
I am pretty sure it's universally considered wrong if a 7 year old is playing with their infant sibling's genitals, whether you're from New York or Kansas. Asking them to lay next to you so they watch TV while you play with yourself... that's just perverse.
Too right, children often feel the need to explore and compare their bodies (particularly if they are close like siblings often are). It's totally natural. Moral panic over.
So what if she is, what's wrong with that? What's so great about being *yawn* 'normal'?
The fact Dylan's brother came out and revealed that their mother, Mia Farrow, was constantly telling her children to say their father abused them speaks volumes to me. It's no open-and-shut case, and Mia Farrow comes across as perhaps worse than Woody Allen, especially if you know her entire life story.
Could you post a link or refer me to the site or book that can corroborate this. Thanks in advance:)
"She leads up to it with a long story about her childhood misuse of the word “rape” — she accuses her little sister of raping her and tells people that her father sticks a fork in her vagina when she misbehaves — and dwells on her lifelong fear of being raped."
Odd.
Also she apparently shared a bed with her parents until well into her adolescence, with her father getting up at 3 am every morning to carry her into the parent's bed. It sounds like Lena was allowed to do anything she wanted and her parents gave her no boundaries at all.
I agree and I hope people don't flame you for linking Grace's lesbianism to her childhood. Presumably it can also happen the other way when a person is born lesbian/gay but abuse makes them heterosexual. Sexuality can be damaged.
It seems obvious that Lena's emotional tinkering of Grace - crushing her and then being the one to comfort her, making a point of withholding her affection then giving it after making Grace beg, and bribing Grace for her affection - would lead Grace to require the unconditional female love that she didn't receive from her sister. Also her first sexual experiences being with her sister would have left an impression on her, especially since that sister was manipulating her, and wasn't always emotionally honest/available.
In the NRO article, it mentions that Lena frequently uses "being in possession of a gay sister" (her words) as a get-out-of-jail-free card to be somewhat homophobic against lesbians.
She sneers at “girls with boyfriends who looked like lesbians,” at a man guilty of “dressing vaguely like a middle-aged lesbian,” etc. “Lesbian” is Dunham’s shorthand for “awful.” On Girls, one of the characters scoffs that “dates are for lesbians,” and Dunham describes a childhood fear that she would become “the militant lesbian leader of a motorcycle gang,”
Oh, I know a physical exam alone isn't enough to disprove sexual abuse- but there's enough info about this issue to at least say the issue of
Allen's guilt is doubt, (why did Frank Maco basically say "Allen's guilty
of a heinous crime, but we're not going to prosecute him because
it would traumatize Dylan?" Whatever happen to
someone being "innocent until successful prosecuted
and found guilty?")
which is why I believe it was unwise of Lena
Dunham to weigh in on this and imply "Allen's guilty-end of story".
We've wandered off a bit- here's an interesting article about the
Dunham issue here:
http://jezebel.com/the-right-to-a-sexual-narrative-on-the-lena-dunham-abu-1654187731
I could maybe understand if she was too young to know really what she was doing, but the stuff about her paying her sister to sleep next to her and then masturbating is a bit predatory. She also said she had a hairless cat and thought she was stroking it, but it was actually her Mum's vagina, oh please!
Mind you her parents are 'interesting' so maybe she thinks this is acceptable.
I am fairly certain if anyone had their sibling bribe them to kiss them, sleep next to them, masturbate next to them and had them refer to them as "less of a person, more of an extension of myself" they'd end up with some sexual issues in later life. It sounds like Lena is an abusive, controlling dom who used her sister as a prop to explore her own sexuality with, from exploring her genitalia to bribing her to kiss her to acting as a body pillow who had to listen and lie next to her sister while she played with herself. Perhaps what she actually needed was strong guidance and someone to stand up to her when she acted out like this, rather than buying her therapy sessions so she could write off her wrong actions with some cod psychology about insecurity and developing sibling relationships. She seems to have lived the live of Reilly while wanting to be Little Orphan Annie, lost in the world her parents can afford for her.
To be fair considering her parents art work it is not surprising she was sexually curious from an early age if they had works in progress or displays of their art around the house. However the idea of any sixteen year old girl lying next to their 10 year old sister while doing that... it's frankly just not right.
Thanks for filling me in.
The only one that seems that offensive is her use of the word 'lesbian' as a shorthand for 'awful'. Still, makes a change from gay men being offended in that way.
... Sounds like a self hating, insecure bisexual person who has now caused their sibling sexual difficulties by victimising her and then using the sexual designation she may have contributed to forming as an insult.
Grace has said: '"Without getting into specifics," she said, "most of our fights have revolved around my feeling like Lena took her approach to her own personal life and made my personal life her property."'
Grace has been annoyed and upset that Lena used her life as material for her show, and feels like she can't have any secrets of her own without her sister sharing them.
Lena was also the one was also the one who outed Grace to their mother, which caused problem's in the sisters' relationship for the next two years.
What I think will come of this is a woman who actually perhaps really thought all of this was OK and is only now finding out it's not and this may raise some huge questions about her own upbringing and the level of abuse (if any) she too may have experienced.
An unaware abuser, if you will.
Agreed, I could imagine Lena having lesbian tendencies.