Girls will be girls

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The Internet was abuzz last week with rumors suggesting Lena Dunham confessed to molesting her younger sister, Grace Dunham, when the two were children.

In her recently published memoir, “Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s ‘Learned,’” Dunham revealed the ways in which she fed her young curiosity through touching her sister’s genitals and coercing her into engaging in intimate contact — for example, offering her younger sister “three pieces of candy if [she] could kiss her on the lips for five seconds.”

Dunham goes so far as to admit that “anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.”

Anybody familiar with Dunham’s HBO series “Girls” knows that the comedian’s sense of humor is quirky, and at times dark and borderline inappropriate. Given this context, we can establish that in comparing herself jokingly to a sexual predator, Dunham didn’t really mean to suggest that she is literally comparable to a sexual predator.

However, there still exist problems with the aforementioned passages from Dunham’s memoir — both with regard to the passage’s context, as well as in Dunham’s defensive response to critics.

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I do believe that Dunham’s childhood “curiosity” crosses the fine line between healthy, childhood experimentation and premeditated, inappropriate actions. But, more than that, I believe the reactions to the passages — Dunham’s, as well as her critics — illustrate multiple gender double standards prevalent in our society.

For her memoir’s controversial subject matter, Dunham received a large helping of criticism, from fans and otherwise. But she’s also been defended almost as many times over.

The progressive, contemporary rhetoric that girls ought to more readily and outwardly embrace their sexual identities is such that it allows for an abundance of fine lines and gray areas, and, often, double standards. What is classically deemed as clear acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior for males is often glossed over for females.

Dunham and some of her defenders almost go so far as to praise her forceful exploration, because it shows that the female anatomy is neither a sacred flower that must be locked away nor one that needs male protection. It is accessible and it is natural.

According to author Alissa Quart, Dunham wrote something of “questionable taste” and it is simply “being misread.” Bloggers fronting the defensive line express their outrage that Dunham is being persecuted simply “for describing her experience.”

It’s great that Dunham has found a medium through which to channel her experiences and subsequent revelations. It’s great that she reaches a receptive and progressive audience, willing to give Dunham the benefit of the doubt and entertain the notion that it’s beneficial and educational to have questions about our growing bodies.

I would love to see the public’s response, however, to an eccentric and famous male humorously recounting the ways he, out of mere childhood “curiosity,” fondled and manipulated his younger sibling. I’ll be so bold as to say that it wouldn’t fly.

We see evidence of this double standard everywhere. A male teacher “seduces” a much younger, female pupil and he is immediately charged. But should a female teacher happens to engage in intimacies with a much younger, male pupil, the pupil probably wanted it, or encouraged the teacher’s advances. Somehow, there always seem to be more gray areas to investigate when the prosecuted individual is female.

Those who defend Dunham argue that the inclusion of this “curiosity” in her memoir depicts not molestation, but, rather, the innocent, childhood exploration of a precocious and curious child.

Fine. Why, then, does she still perceive such behavior as inherently innocent and not at all questionable? The memoir’s subtitle implies that the work will contain snapshots of what Dunham has “learned.” Clearly, we must regard the titular quotation marks around “learned” with great seriousness.

I am of the viewpoint that Dunham might have had a misguided and questionable childhood. I am strongly of the viewpoint that Dunham should perhaps find a better editor, one more suited for giving the talented young woman practical, reasonable advice regarding things probably best left unmentioned in one’s memoir endeavors.

But regardless of where my opinion rests, I believe the controversy that Dunham’s memoir has inspired serves as an apt and important illustration of the ways gendered double standards plague our contemporary world.

Carly is a junior in FAA. She can be reached at [email protected].