Updated 1:04 E.T.
Author and actress Lena Dunham has been an object of widespread cultural fascination since her HBO show “Girls” debuted in 2012. She’s also figured prominently in some cultural think pieces on right-wing news websites lately, but last week those bloggers’ attention took a perverse turn.
National Review writer Kevin D. Williamson, who was echoed by Truth Revolt, accused Dunham of sexually abusing her younger sister. Dunham fought back Saturday on Twitter, accusing the bloggers of “twisting” her words.
The basis for Williamson’s accusation was Dunham’s own essay collection, “Not That Kind Of Girl” (Williamson is the same National Review writer who suggested women who have abortions should be hanged during a Twitter exchange about another blog post that was critical of Dunham). The actress described several episodes of her early experimentation with her sexuality in the book, including an account of looking up her baby sister Grace’s vagina, which Williamson called “suspicious.”
These are the incidents that Williamson believes amount to sexual abuse:
Dunham writes of casually masturbating while in bed next to her younger sister, of bribing her with “three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds . . . anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.” At one point, when her sister is a toddler, Lena Dunham pries open her vagina — “my curiosity got the best of me,” she offers, as though that were an explanation. “This was within the spectrum of things I did.”
“There is no non-horrific interpretation of this episode,” Williamson wrote, adding that the behavior Dunham described is “the sort of thing that gets children taken away from non-millionaire families without Andover pedigrees and Manhattanite social connections.”
He also accused Dunham’s parents of being “enablers” for “child abuse” given that her father, artist Carroll Dunham, painted “canvases anchored by puffy neon-pink labia” and her mother, photographer Laurie Simmons, “filled the family home with nude pictures of herself.”
Truth Revolt also misstated Dunham’s age at the time of the vagina episode in following up on Williamson’s piece. The post was “modified to correct a typo in the book excerpt incorrectly listing Dunham’s age as seventeen” — a change of 10 years that could have drastically altered readers’ interpretation of the event Dunham described.
Right-wing writers weren’t the only people disturbed by those parts of Dunham’s book, however. Feminist writer and critic Roxane Gay had this reaction:
I find it disturbing. I think kids do weird shit. I don’t think I should tell Grace how to perceive her life. @PennyDreadful81 @lenadunham
— Roxane Gayrten (@rgay) November 1, 2014
Dunham, for her part, called the accusations “upsetting” and “disgusting” Saturday in a slew of tweets she described as a “rage spiral”:
The right wing news story that I molested my little sister isn’t just LOL- it’s really fucking upsetting and disgusting.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 1, 2014
And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid’s vagina, well, congrats to you.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 1, 2014
Usually this is stuff I can ignore but don’t demean sufferers, don’t twist my words, back the fuck up bros.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 1, 2014
I told a story about being a weird 7 year old. I bet you have some too, old men, that I’d rather not hear. And yes, this is a rage spiral.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 1, 2014
Sometimes I get so mad I burn right up. Also I wish my sister wasn’t laughing so hard.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) November 1, 2014
Dunham also announced the cancellation of two European stops on her book tour in the days following her Twitter spree.
Update: Dunham’s younger sister, Grace, appeared to address the accusations Monday on Twitter:
heteronormativity deems certain behaviours harmful, and others “normal”; the state and media are always invested in maintaining that
— Grace Dunham (@simongdunham) November 3, 2014
As a queer person: i’m committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful
— Grace Dunham (@simongdunham) November 3, 2014
2day, like every other day, is a good day to think about how we police the sexualities of young women, queer, and trans people
— Grace Dunham (@simongdunham) November 3, 2014
Never let an opportunity go to waste to lie, misrepresent, and belittle a leftie, right wingers?
“canvases anchored by puffy neon-pink labia”
LOL. Williams is just jealous because the conservative labia he’s able to land are generally dry and strangely grayish. When can we hang him?
Yep, attack her at any opportunity and then she’ll be marked “controversial” and thus unsuitable to comment on matters of import by our media elite.
I’m feeling old here, but I am I supposed to know who this person is?
I was gifted the book because I’ve been a Dunham fan since Girls first appeared on TV. Frankly, I don’t care. If what happened comes as a shock to anyone it’s because most people don’t talk about it. It’s existed since ever and will exist until the day after ever.