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Barry from Oberlin and his lawyer are fighting back still and letting Lena Dunham slander him for a nonexistent sexual encounter in college. This is from an entertainment blog (Miss Dunham is an actress after all)
Random House tells TheWrap: “The name ‘Barry’ referenced in the book is a pseudonym. Random House, on our own behalf and on behalf of our author, regrets the confusion”
Lena Dunham‘s publisher has responded to a story on conservative blog Breitbart News which questioned the validity of rape allegations in the actress’ memoir, as well as her silence since coming forward with the sexual assault claims. The detailed report on Breitbart also called into question Dunham possibly misidentifying the man who she calls “Barry” in the book.
This does not come close to an apology: it is an attempt to divest themselves of legal culpability. Seems to me that Miss Dunham was crying rape just so she can get a social justice warrior patch or something resembling street cred. On that note, Breitbart asks some excellent questions:
1. Lena Dunham has yet to detail what in her rape story is true and what is not true.
2. Was Lena Dunham’s alleged attacker indeed the “campus’s resident conservative”? Was, in fact, her rapist a conservative? A Republican? A prominent Republican on campus? Did he work in a library? Was he mustachioed? Did he wear purple cowboy boots? Did he host a radio show? Did he graduate in December of 2005? How many of these descriptors are true and how many made up?
3. Why on page 3 of her memoir did Dunham inform her readers that she was using a pseudonym for an old boyfriend, but not tell her readers the same when she discussed her rapist named Barry? With the early notification of the use of a pseudonym, the reader is left with the impression that a precedent is being set – that Dunham will identify when she is and is not using a pseudonym.
4. Why does Dunham open the chapter about the rape with the words, “I’m an unreliable narrator” and then go on to write, “[I]n another essay in this book I describe a sexual encounter with a mustachioed campus Republican as the upsetting but educational choice of a girl who was new to sex when, in fact, it didn’t feel like a choice at all.”
Good questions that a competent editor should have asked. Miss Dunham however fit the narrative and fact checking is soooo inconvenient! Miss Dunham hopefully will be paying for her lies for years to come in the courts and in her career. But Hollywood loves Roman Polanski and she is fast approaching his despicable traits.
Full disclosure: this is a big deal that is near and dear to me. False accusations of rape are deal breakers. My experience (and spare me the one-in-five crap: having a weenie waggled at you is.not.the.same.as.rape). I can speak personally to the impact of sexual assault. My story involved a creeper who found a knife, slashed the screen on my apartment’s back door held a knife to my throat and sexually assaulted me. I can give details decades later (I recall parts as clear as day but I do not really like revisiting the worst hour of my life) unlike Miss Dunham. And to make it worse, lies like hers stand and rarely does the accused try to clear their name. To make things worse, her story makes it harder and harder for juries to believe the victim or for prosecutors to win a rape case.
Nice feminist role model Lena.
Jodi Giddings says: Excellent, Gail.
And I hope they get their day in court.
Gail Boer says: I wish she could be tried for this but something tells me she will skate from any consequences financially and legally.
Wfjag says: Dunham released the following minor corrections to her autobiography:
1. His name was not Barry;
2. He did not have a mustache;
3. He did not wear cowboy boots;
4. He did not work at a library;
5. He did not host a radio talk show;
6. He was not a Republican;
7. He did not meet or know any woman I knew in college;
8. He did not attend Oberlin College; and,
9. There was no rape.
But, other than these minor details, believe me when I tell you that everything I wrote is true.
Gail Boer says: And if you don’t believe me it is war against women! Shaking my head.
GWB says: I hope justice was visited upon your attacker, Gail. I also hope you got the support you needed when you needed it.
You are absolutely right about this hurting actual victims of sexual assault and rape. It’s hard enough making their story heard when it’s true, and physical evidence is minimal. It will be even harder now.
One thing I have never understood (since I have never and will never read Dunham’s book) is how she turned a consensual encounter into a rape. She only realized later that she hadn’t consented? WTF? That sort of bullhockey definition of rape also doesn’t help real victims of sexual assault and rape.
Gail Boer says: thanks! the police and my family and friends were great. Still are really. GWB the culture of victimhood wants to make the bullhockey as valid as an actual attack. so frustrating!
It ought to be an axiom: the more the left sensationalize a claim — a claim not limited to sexual assault — the less likely it is to be true. And what that has done is to harm those people who have already been harmed, by rape and by other things.
The left like to claim that challenging “Jackie’s” story will make it less likely that real rape victims will come forward and take their cases to law enforcement. The problem is that publishing a demonstrably false story, by lying about a rape, both the Rolling Stone and Miss Dunham’s case, it is the left who have made it more difficult for rape victims to think that they will be believed. None of this would have been a problem if they had just told the truth in the first place!
Gail Boer says: Exactly and the left will not get that the truth always always comes out. I just hate that the victims are somewhat powerless (the victims being the wrongfully accused men in these cases).
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