Lena Dunham Enters ‘Rage Spiral’ Over Molestation Accusations

A National Review writer criticized Dunham for detailing a moment when she looked at her 1-year-old sister’s genitals when she was 7 years old

Lena Dunham fired back at critics accusing her being a child molester after reading an excerpt in her memoir, in which she describes curiously exploring her 1-year-old sister’s genitals at the age of seven.

“The right wing news story that I molested my little sister isn’t just LOL- it’s really f–king upsetting and disgusting,” Dunham tweeted on Saturday. “And by the way, if you were a little kid and never looked at another little kid’s vagina, well, congrats to you.”

Also read: Lena Dunham on Dealing With Vitriolic Internet Trolls: I React With ‘Class and a Little Bit of Sass’

“Usually this is stuff I can ignore but don’t demean sufferers, don’t twist my words, back the fuck up bros,” the “Girls” creator continued. “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. Sometimes I get so mad I burn right up. Also I wish my sister wasn’t laughing so hard.”

The”rage spiral” came after National Review writer Kevin D. Williamson used the passage from “Not That Kind of Girl” to label Dunham and her parents “child abusers” in a piece called “Pathetic Privilege.”

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And they were, in their daughter’s telling, enablers of some very disturbing behavior that would be considered child abuse in many jurisdictions — Lena Dunham‘s sexual abuse, specifically, of her younger sister, Grace, the sort of thing that gets children taken away from non-millionaire families without Andover pedigrees and Manhattanite social connections. 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.

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Here is Dunham’s account:

“Do we all have uteruses?” I asked my mother when I was seven.

“Yes,” she told me. “We’re born with them, and with all our eggs, but they start out very small. And they aren’t ready to make babies until we’re older.” I look at my sister, now a slim, tough one-year-old, and at her tiny belly. I imagined her eggs inside her, like the sack of spider eggs in Charlotte’s Webb, and her uterus, the size of a thimble.

“Does her vagina look like mine?”

“I guess so,” my mother said. “Just smaller.”

One day, as I sat in our driveway in Long Island playing with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me. Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn’t resist and when I saw what was inside I shrieked.

My mother came running. “Mama, Mama! Grace has something in there!”

My mother didn’t bother asking why I had opened Grace’s vagina. This was within the spectrum of things I did. She just on her knees and looked for herself. It quickly became apparent that Grace had stuffed six or seven pebbles in there. My mother removed them patiently while Grace cackled, thrilled that her prank had been a success.

Dunham has not offered further comment on Twitter since Saturday.

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