Lena Dunham admits to probing her younger sister’s vagina when she was seven.
I don’t watch Girls. Don’t have time. What little I’ve seen appears quite scatological and sexual, which is OK, just not my demo. Young woman seem to like Lena Dunham. When she launched her book tour with plans to include performers it eventually came out that she also had no plans to pay them. It’s tough coming from a rich family. Seriously. You don’t realize that for most struggling artists the struggle is making rent. When Dunham’s unintentional rapacity was exposed she said she would pay them. I like the fact that she’s willing to admit that she’s wrong. She’s young. People make mistakes, and the important thing is to correct them, which she did.
Now some disturbing excerpts from her book have been published in the National Review, and I hate to admit that I do agree with the conservatives on this one. In Not That Kind of Girl Dunham talks at length about being seven and bribing her one-year-old sister so she could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Far, far worse she then writes about exploring her sister’s vagina.
A seven-year-old girl exploring a one-year-old baby’s vagina is sick. I suspect had her parents known about this behavior both children would have been forced into therapy. Kids make mistakes. There is nothing criminal in what Dunham did. But there is something reckless about celebrating this activity in a book of essays. It’s something you discuss with your therapist, not your fans. Going public as the abuser doesn’t wash the sin clean. If anything you have once again violated your sister. This was something that was hers to reveal, not yours.
It’s one thing to make light of things in your past you’re ashamed of. It’s another to discuss things in your past that are shameful. You don’t make light of exploring your younger sister’s vagina. You make amends.
Lena Dunham is not going to jail. She’s going to have a long and productive career. I hope. But some of us will look at her differently now. I also hope. And now some will look at her sister differently. I do not hope.
I hope Lena has learned that there’s a reason we put doors on bathrooms. There’s a reason we draw the shades when making love. And there’s a reason we don’t discuss certain things in polite company.
Lena Dunham is in her 20s. She’ll learn. I did and said a lot of stupid things back then. I still do.
Lena’s cancelled portions of her book tour. I hope in order to patch things up with her sister.
Here’s also hoping Lena can now focus on more important things than the human body.