Passages from “Girls” creator and actress Lena Dunham’s new book, “Not That Kind of Girl,” in which she reminisces about childhood sexual exploration with her younger sister, could be at the center of legal action the actress is threatening against a conservative website which published excerpts from the book.
But those explicit snippets, in which Dunham discusses how, as a 7 year-old, she was fascinated with her one-year-old sister Grace, have been relayed only in print, until now.
Dunham’s attorneys at Harder, Mirrell & Abrams issued a “cease and desist” letter to the website Truth Revolt, claiming that an article it posted to the site flagging the passages was “false and fabricated” and “highly defamatory.”
The attorneys took issue with Truth Revolt’s claim that Dunham was “experimenting sexually with her younger sister” and that she “experimented with her six-year younger sister’s vagina.”
Dunham’s lawyers demanded that Truth Revolt remove the offending post in its entirety and issue a public apology. The editors of the site have refused to do so, writing, “We refuse to withdraw our story or apologize for running it, because quoting a woman’s book does not constitute a ‘false’ story, even if she is a prominent actress and left-wing activist.”
National Review’s Kevin Williamson also reviewed Dunham’s book, writing of Dunham’s behavior towards her sister, that “there is no non-horrific interpretation of this episode.” He also included another in which Dunham casually reminisced about the time she thought she was stroking a hairless cat which actually turned out to be her mother’s nether regions. Williamson also blasted a passage in which Dunham related how, as a teenager, she would pretend to masturbate when her pre-teen sister was in the room.
In his piece, Williamson, who was heavily criticized by a number of liberal commentators who thought he was obsessed with the actress, also drew attention to Dunham’s upbringing by her two artistic, free-spirited parents. Dunhams’ father is a painter known for his sexually explicit works. Her mother is a photographer who kept nude pictures of herself with her legs spread wide open sitting around Dunham’s childhood home.
In response to the two articles, which created a stir not just among conservatives but also with a number of progressives who were upset with Dunham’s non-chalance over what they perceived as sexual abuse, Dunham said on Twitter that she had entered a “rage spiral.” She also canceled two European stops on her book tour.
The 28-year-old actress also apologized for the passages.
“If the situations described in my book have been painful or triggering for people to read, I am sorry, as that was never my intention. I am also aware that the comic use of the term ‘sexual predator’ was insensitive, and I’m sorry for that as well,” Dunham said in a statement.
“First and foremost, I want to be very clear that I do not condone any kind of abuse under any circumstances.”