The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => Philosophy, Religion & Society => Topic started by: rooster on November 03, 2014, 11:41:48 PM
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/lena-dunham-responds-to-sex-abuse-claims?s=mobile
It looks like people are upset about an alleged 7 year old child experimenting with her younger sister.
Personally, I think you have to look at these things case by case where the ages and intent are really important. Sexually curiosity is normal behavior but at what point does it become abuse?
Typically you do this kind of exploration with kids your age and it's a mutual curiosity, this sounds like she knowingly took advantage of her younger sister.
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It's not like they can press charges. I think it's sick regardless. I've never had any urge to do something like that, and I have an older sister (and yes, we were kind of close).
Isn't having thoughts about mating or experimenting with your siblings biologically wrong to begin with? I thought most people were naturally not attracted to their family members.
*PP2 rooster joke goes here*
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I honestly don't know. My brothers are 10 and 7 years older than me and we never did anything remotely like that. But I don't know if that's cause they were my brothers or because of the big age differences.
I only played doctor and whatever with boys my age.
I think it's the age difference and the power play that really makes this fucked up. It's normal for her to have been curious but to knowingly take advantage of someone so much younger just seems like abuse.
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That shit is fucked up, she abused the hell out her sister. Your brothers are cool. That bitch is a cunt, nasty skanky cunt.
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(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/KvNcmKvugcxl9Y9PYeiGi1zRIXmUrAsevRKXyOQaEANTGhuleVFH4IYDxQ90719fTQKA1dmo6Q=s640-h400-e365)
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Of course the right-wing rags will be oversensationalizing and twisting the story - that's what they do. But at the same time, Lena Dunham really is a vapid idiot, and she has never once contributed anything of value to the national discourse. It would be nice if she just sort of faded back into obscurity again.
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Who's Lena Dunham??
?
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Who thinks "oh I'll just write about doing fucked up perverse things to my little sister" and then expects no critical backslash?
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Blanko shows how cool and so-not-into-celebrities he is
Also this is pretty weird, so...
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Well there is this article in Dunham's defense. But honestly, I'm not aware of it being normal to check out your much younger siblings. However, I do not have any younger siblings. But I sure as shit know my brothers didn't do anything like this.
Also... there is no way a one year old could put 6-7 pebbles in their vagina. And it's even less likely that a parent would be able to easily remove them.
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-ra-lena-dunham-is-no-child-molester-20141104-column.html
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I didn't do anything with my younger sister either. But yeah, that's just 2 people.
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For me, this is just an honest appraisal of a childhood. I don't think these actions would be particularly rare. Admitting to them later in life is rare.
Because of the huge taboo about incest and sex with minors most people would never mention this. Ever. But I wonder how unsurprising this might really be.
If I look at any mammal, there aren't any rules to sex. They do what they can get away with. Bonobos screw anything that moves, dogs use sex as a sign of domination, chimps wank each other off, and none of them are worried about the age of the 'victim'. Pop a hamster in a cage with his 5 sisters and he's not going to be deterred.
I don't find sibling incest very eyebrow raising. Similar ages, close proximity, both as ugly or as good looking as one another, and there is an argument that you are attracted to people with similar genetic traits. Siblings separated at birth and meeting much later in life and falling in love is something that makes headlines but happens way more than you might expect. Yes, you aren't supposed to have sex with your siblings in a 'healthy society' but actually the odds of a deformed baby are incredibly low. Sex with a cousin only raises the odds of a genetic defect by 4% over the normal population. Sex with a sibling 7%-31% over normal. But considering how low the risk is normally, its a tiny risk. Looking back to our cave people ancestors, you'd likely find a lot of it. Small nomadic populations, no rules, no law.
Regarding abuse, who would remember someone peering into their vagina aged one? A doctor might do that if you are ill.
I think the backlash is that people expect each other to be citizens, not creatures. To abide all rules regardless of curiosity, sexual impulse or sense of mischief. Religion could help prevent such things. If a child feels God is watching them all the time, they may refrain from doing something naughty. Without God, ... your odds of nothing like this ever happening when the kids are alone diminishes.
Think past the law, think past the morality, think past the rules and expectation of society. Kids aren't born with those concepts. Imagine 2 cave children left alone. Would they ever do this?
I'd offer sibling incest isn't a natural no-no. More of a preference should other suitable mates not be around. And abuse is something that pervades the mammalian world. I wouldn't call a 7 year old that did this disgusting. It doesn't shock me as unnatural or unexplained.
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tl;dr
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Goddamn. For once I actually agree with Thork on something like this. Couldn't have put it a whole lot better myself.
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Goddamn. For once I actually agree with Thork on something like this. Couldn't have put it a whole lot better myself.
I agree as well.
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It sounds more like thork didn't read the article, he only read the thread and then made a comment based on that. While what Thork said isn't necessarily wrong, I wouldn't say it is entirely relevant. This is a lot worse than some curious incest, made worse by the fact the author described herself as molesting her sibling.
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To some extent, I agree. But unfortunately, Lena saw her sister as an extension of herself and that she can do what she wants with her. This is where parenting should have stepped in to establish boundaries, but it doesn't seem like that happened which is great for setting up a dysfunctional family.
Lena is very public. Her sister Grace is very private and also gay. I just wonder if she would have turned out differently if her sister wasn't probing her vagina.
And I think the "bribing" happened when they got older and the sister seems to remember those incidents. Which is terrible because it teaches the sister that her affection can be bought.
As a reference on the age: One of my brothers is 7 years older than me which is just a 1 year difference from these sisters. When we were really little, my brother was busy hanging out with friends his own age. It doesn't seem like a big age gap now but to kids that's pretty substantial.
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It sounds more like thork didn't read the article, he only read the thread and then made a comment based on that. While what Thork said isn't necessarily wrong, I wouldn't say it is entirely relevant. This is a lot worse than some curious incest, made worse by the fact the author described herself as molesting her sibling.
I think the self reference as a sexual predator has more to do with her writing style than an serious appraisal of herself. I might be wrong, but having watched "Girls" and reading those tweets, that was the impression I got. It was a stupid fucking thing to write, but the degree to which she is getting crucified is totally unwarranted, considering she was a 7 year old at the time (refer to Thork's insightful post again). Tight-ass Americans need to chill.
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What Rama Sed. It came off as really dark humour. Probably not wise, but I don't really take it into account when thinking about what she did.
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I don't think it's straight rape or anything that extreme but it is inappropriate and something a child of that age should have been taught not to do.
Obviously children do things outside of social acceptability until taught otherwise. Kids don'the know any better but when you see them abusing animals then you teach that kid that it's not okay to kick a dogs. She should not have been manipulating her sister and buying her affection at the age of 7+.
I would say it's normal curiosity that was allowed to grow into abnormal manipulation and touching.
And I'm using abnormal in terms of our cultural. It's natural for humans to be filthy animals that are violent and greedy but this seems abnormal for suburban white kids.
And depending on how long that was allowed to continue, it must have had some negative effects on her sister at least in terms of perceived self-worth.
But also, she totally shouldn't have compared herself to a sexual predator. That was completely stupid and insensitive on her part, particularly for such an outspoken feminist.
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But also, she totally shouldn't have compared herself to a sexual predator. That was completely stupid ...
She wants to sell books, right? And now there is a viral shit storm happening?
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She's an indie, hipster, feminist. I really doubt publicity was her aim with that. It's seems like it's just her style to exaggerate and go for taboo subjects.
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To some extent, I agree. But unfortunately, Lena saw her sister as an extension of herself and that she can do what she wants with her. This is where parenting should have stepped in to establish boundaries, but it doesn't seem like that happened which is great for setting up a dysfunctional family.
Lena is very public. Her sister Grace is very private and also gay. I just wonder if she would have turned out differently if her sister wasn't probing her vagina.
And I think the "bribing" happened when they got older and the sister seems to remember those incidents. Which is terrible because it teaches the sister that her affection can be bought.
As a reference on the age: One of my brothers is 7 years older than me which is just a 1 year difference from these sisters. When we were really little, my brother was busy hanging out with friends his own age. It doesn't seem like a big age gap now but to kids that's pretty substantial.
I suppose you could say that she should have been taught not to behave that way, but, as I am learning as a parent, sometimes it does not matter in the slightest what you try to impart to your child, they will do as they do.
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If you had read the articles posted you would have seen that the mother didn't ever seem to question Lena's actions.
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I see this all the time in reddit, but I'm pretty surprised half the people in a forum with maybe a daily activity of 5 threads a day can't bother to read the goddamn article.
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I see this all the time in reddit, but I'm pretty surprised half the people in a forum with maybe a daily activity of 5 threads a day can't bother to read the goddamn article.
>implying laziness is inherent to a website
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>implying laziness is inherent to a website
It is inherent to websites with lots and lots of people. I don't find it unreasonable to expect people to read an article before commenting on a forum that has maybe 20 active members.
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Just because the sample size decreases doesn't mean the behaviour changes inexplicably. If most people are lazy, that will apply to 20 people as well
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If you had read the articles posted you would have seen that the mother didn't ever seem to question Lena's actions.
Did I say otherwise?
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Did I say otherwise?
This seems to imply that regardless of what you teach them they will do what they want:
I suppose you could say that she should have been taught not to behave that way, but, as I am learning as a parent, sometimes it does not matter in the slightest what you try to impart to your child, they will do as they do.
Whereas in this case she's not even trying. Parenting is about teaching and guiding, not giving up on crazy children.
I used to throw my cat when I was a kid. One day my brothers threw me back and forth and I never threw a cat after that. I was about 5 years old and I still vividly remember that lesson. Kids learn, you just have to keep trying.
If you have a kid that's touching other children inappropriately you don't say "Welp, fuck it. There's nothing I can do, I'll just raise a potential pedophile."
The problem with this story is not that Lena wasn't getting the lesson, it's that the mother was not even bothering to teach boundaries.
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I totally agree that the fact that a child may do what they want is not an excuse to abdicate parental responsibility but it sounds like the father did try and impart lessons to her. Instead of chastising the boundary crossing, he encouraged alternate ways to fulfill the emotional need Lena was trying to sate. It is a perfectly valid way to tackle parenting in awkward circumstances. There is probably a whole lot of context Lena sacrificed in the story to achieve the impact it does, so I am not willing to delve too much further in to a dissection of how she was parented.
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There is probably a whole lot of context Lena sacrificed in the story to achieve the impact it does, so I am not willing to delve too much further in to a dissection of how she was parented.
Fair enough.
But it's still weird and not completely normal.
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Just because the sample size decreases doesn't mean the behaviour changes inexplicably. If most people are lazy, that will apply to 20 people as well
People act differently in small groups versus crowds.
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Not in this case, my friend. Laziness is quite prevalent, especially here.
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Not in this case, my friend. Laziness is quite prevalent, especially here.
Its not nearly as prevalent here as elsewhere. Furthermore, making excuses for another's behavior does nothing but show that it is acceptable to comment on things without reading about them because lazy people are lazy.
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There is probably a whole lot of context Lena sacrificed in the story to achieve the impact it does, so I am not willing to delve too much further in to a dissection of how she was parented.
Fair enough.
But it's still weird and not completely normal.
Sure. It does appear that either Lena has some sort of anti-social compulsion or her parents inadequately applied social pressures to help her understand that this behavior is generally not acceptable.