Lena Dunham and the federal government ain’t volunteering to advocate for rape victims; they would like compensation—in millions, please.
Faceless and nameless men and women volunteer every day, all across the country, to counsel, shelter and heal sexual assault victims. Hollywood darling Lena Dunham is advocating for women too. But Dunham is neither offering women practical tools to deter rape nor taking a six-month sabbatical to volunteer at a woman’s shelter.
She is offering a book, that women may purchase, containing her tale of rape. So, after contributing to Dunham’s coffer, a rape victim may read Dunham’s story in commiseration while crouching in the fetal position.
Dunham’s latest memoir rushed to the top of bestseller lists, largely on the coattails of its most controversial section: the story of her rape by a Republican named Barry.
There is nothing wrong with sharing factual stories with the goal of empowering women. But if you slander men in the process of drawing attention to females victimized by sexual assault, then you are aggravating the problem by fanning flames of animosity between men and women.
“I don’t believe I am to blame,” Dunham said after all the facts indicated that the individual who she describes in her book as “Barry” is not a rapist in real life. More on that momentarily.
The federal government is granting over half a million dollars to groups like the Magee Women’s Research Institute to study why “Obese girls consistently report having fewer dating and sexual experiences, but more sexual risk behaviors once they are sexually active.”
Svelte girls go on more dates and have higher levels of sexual activity than obese girls because women who appear healthy are naturally more sexually attractive than women who appear unhealthy. Obama administration consultants like Jonathan Gruber think women are too stupid to decide for themselves whether to increase their dating pool by losing weight. Gruber’s groupies also know there’s a pile of taxpayer money to be stolen (er, I mean, raised) by pretending to care about women’s sexual health.
Then there’s Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA), who keeps himself employed by birthing new legislation like “Yes Means Yes,” which makes it easier for women to accuse men of rape—while denying women the most modern and effective tool to deter rape, a firearm.
Back to Dunham. In her memoir, she narrates her own date rape by using the rapist’s real first name as well as several other identifiers. Or at least she leads her readers to believe that the rapist’s real name is “Barry” because she does not inform them that she’s using a pseudonym like she specifically does when describing an ex-boyfriend.
Dunham says she was aware of her attacker’s aggressive sexual tendencies and had already experienced a very invasive advance from him that, ironically, part of her “didn’t want to [stop]” before she asked him to spend the night at her apartment. When the ensuing sexual intercourse was “terribly aggressive” and he removed his condom, she felt duped.
Dunham irresponsibly describes her attacker as a prominent Republican named Barry—despite the fact that school records indicate there was only one man named Barry attending her small liberal arts college in Ohio, and he happened to also be an active Republican.
Dunham received so much pressure to correct the record that her publisher recently agreed to help cover real-life Barry’s legal bills and alter future editions of Dunham’s memoir to note that “Barry” is actually a pseudonym.
If you care about protecting women from rape on campus, then you should support a woman’s right to carry concealed firearms on campus. Slandering men through careless reporting; writing empty legislation that makes it easier for women to slander men; and funding silly sex studies will not end the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses.
The million-dollar question is whether Dunham’s book would have done so well without a titillating story of rape tied to a verifiable individual who also happened to be a Republican. Sex sells in Hollywood. But allegations sell more—true or not.
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