"This is hard to share without alarm bells sounding. We’re taught to listen to little girls, particularly when they say things about being sodomized with cutlery. Also my father makes sexually explicit artwork so he’s probably already on the FBI’s fork-in-vagina radar. It’s a testament to his good nature that, after the British lady repeated my 'hilarious' story to a group of adults, he simply scooped me up and said, 'I think it’s someone’s bedtime.' It’s hard to grasp what my intent was here— we’re talking about a child who was fond of pretending a ghost was touching her nonbreasts against her will— but I guess the moral of this story is that my dad’s really nice, yet I’ve always had an imagination that could grasp, maybe even appreciate, the punitive."
Yes, I bought the Kindle version of Lena Dunham's "Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's 'Learned'" and did a search on "vagina."
I mainly wanted to do a search on "vulva," for reasons stated here. The answer to that question is: 0.
November 4, 2014
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
48 comments:
Lots, lots more than I wanted to know.
(But as a blogger, at least, I can appreciate why you had to know.)
There's a cover story on her in an Oberlin Alumni magazine, being apparently a graduate of Oberlin.
I haven't read it but hey it's a famous person name and maybe I'll read it someday.
Vulva is not a popular term. For one thing it's too specific for the meaning wanted. Vagina plus synecdoche works better.
Synecdouche, one could stupidly write.
I'd like to buy a u.
Ugh! That's gross, and way too much informatoin.
rhhardin wins the Internet today.
Althouse: doing a "vagina" search of LD's book so we don't have to. When they put you in jail for downloading child pornography (and I think they probably could) I'll donate $5 to your defense fund.
There's not much you can do with vaginas but put stuff in them.
Hence all the performance art with chocolate and yarn and strips of poetry.
It's not like breasts, which you can put tassles on and whirl, the two chief schools being same way and opposite way.
This is why feathers and veils were created. They conceal that nothing is concealed, the true feminine operation.
"rhhardin wins the Internet today."
+1.
synecdoche: my goal is to use it three times this week. At least once in front of a class. (Tenure can be a good thing.)
The vagina isn't the part involved in sodomy.
Sydeny has a narrow definition of sodomy or a stifled imagination of how you get turned into a pillar of salt
@sydney: "sodomy" is anything other than penile-vaginal intercourse so, unless this woman has a penis, what she did with her sister is "sodomy".
Vulva reminds me of an old joke a nurse told me one time. The difference between uvula and vulva.
One is ah! and the other is AAAAH !!!
So how many hits are there?
Most children move beyond the "say/do embarrassing things/pushing boundaries just go get attention" phase. I guess by her own admission (as her career perhaps illustrates) Dunham never did.
Your feminist icon, ladies and gentlemen.
This generation feels the same liberation from saying 'vagina' that ours (Althouse's) experienced from saying 'fuck' all the time.
Thank you Ann for zeroing in on what should be the real focus here- LD's parents.
Like the Kennedys, LDs parents are too rich and liberal to be guilty of anything.
Has anyone seen her Carroll Dunham's art? It seems to be all vulva or penis and balls graffiti.
Wiki: Of his body of work, Johanna Burton writes, "Dunham’s career can be characterized by its rigorous indefinability, as his works dip freely into the realms of abstraction, figuration, surrealism, graffiti, pop, even cartoons, without ever settling loyally into any one of them."[2] David Pagel, in a Los Angeles Times review intended to be complimentary, described his paintings as "vulgar beyond belief... It's easy to see why many people find them offensive, demeaning and disgusting, as well as mean-spirited, malicious and horrific. They are all that and more."[3]
The unlinkable OED would show that the word vagina is sexist. It comes from Latin (although it wasn't used by the Romans to refer to genitals) and originally referred to a "sheath." Clearly the word implies that the vagina exists only to serve the penis (what good is a sheath without the sheathed?)--ipso facto the word itself is sexist. Free your minds, sexist sheeple!
Schenectady?
CatherineM said..."characterized by its rigorous indefinability"
Whoa, I didn't know you could define something by its indefinability--I am totally going to steal that phrase. How would I describe my sex life, you ask?
we’re talking about a child who was fond of pretending a ghost was touching her nonbreasts against her will
This kid sounds messed up
I think her dad is a talented artist but his paintings would be much improved if they were not so v-centric. Quite distracting.
Art, like a lot of things in life, are in the eye of the beholder. You and I don't see things the same way.
"When I'm bad....my father sticks a fork in my vagina."
That's just his way of telling her, "You're done."
Obviously support for serious artists leads to their being bad people/bad parents and that leads to them harming their kids (who then harm their siblings and others)...I think we should all be highly suspicious of anyone who supports art or modern artists--what a ridiculous way to spend one's money!
I'd say, not having investigated, that it's sexual performance art, involving the people who are disgusted as major players.
Which sounds like her TV act too. All I've heard is how ugly she is. Those critics are needed participants.
It's one up on madonna and whoever the replacement madonna is, forget her name.
Sexual meaning the infantile definition as well as the erotic. Maybe de-eroticized is the way to put it.
Hoodlum - that made me laugh too. Made me think of Steve Martin in LA Story staring at a painting of almost solid red and stating it makes him feel, "emotionally....erect."
...Mulva?
I wander if Smarter Lil Lena got her vulva covered up and made it down to the polling place today? Lil John and Lil Lena sure got me in the voting mood!
You know Lena worked up a "rage spiral" back in January when some writer had the nerve to question her about her bizarre need to take her clothes off. I'm beginning to think Lil Lena is just an attention whore.
"Vulva" has been around forever. If it hasn't caught on by now it isn't going to.
Fact is, most people are confused by the term. Ask somebody, "what's a vulva?", they'll either tell you its one of those plastic horns they kept blowing at the World Cup a few years ago or they'll think its a fancy car from Europe.
We need a new term.
Personally, I like 'gina an shit. Get Lena Dunham and a couple other popular celebs to say 'gina an shit on TV and I guarantee it will be the future of female genitalia terminology.
Maybe somebody else has a better replacement word. If so, I'm ready to hear it.
I don't think the point of the paragraph is that her father actually stuck a fork in her. She was making that up. Even as a child, she knew exactly how to transgress. That also reinforces by belief that she is fully aware of what "normal" boundaries are, and chooses to violate these boundaries for her own purposes. In this case it was through a lie (or joke?)
So when is she lying, and when not? We don't know. Does she?
Haha if my father wasn't a wealthy white guy he'd be fresh meat in prison. Hahahaha. Haha.
Hahahahahahaha that's so funny. Poor people and minorities who have to deal with the criminal justice system are funny. What a fucking laugh those people are.
Hahahahahaha.
(And yes I know he didn't actually do it. The accusation is enough, if you're not wealthy and white.)
You keep saying that vagina doesn't mean vulva, but a word means what people say it means.
I still say "whom" but the truth is that very few people do anymore. Who is now correct.
Vagina is now correct as well and it's pedantic to insist that everyone adhere to a definition that only pedants and doctors follow.
" I'm beginning to think Lil Lena is just an attention whore."
Which would go back to putting pebbles in her infant sister's vagina.
I know she didn't cop to that but I'm with Ann, no way a 1+ infant did that.
Next up: LD proclaims this was all made up and a grand social experiment.
HoodlumDoodlum said...
The unlinkable OED would show that the word vagina is sexist. It comes from [Roman] Latin . . . and originally referred to a "sheath." Clearly the word implies that the vagina exists only to serve the penis (what good is a sheath without the sheathed?)
Sheaths are for knives. So perhaps instead of prattling about sexism, we might wonder: "what has she done with that knife?"
My my what a sick perverted puppy Lena is. She needs psychiatric help immediately.
"Girls" is over.
Her book advance is coming back.
Prepare the rubber room.
What's the Matter With Lena?
From "Not That Kind of Dog: Lena Dunham's Puppy Tells You What She's 'Learned'."
At first I thought we were just playing a game. I like to play games, games with sticks, games with balls, games with squeaky things and stretchy things, there are all kinds of games I like, I'm a dog: I like to play games. But then I learned: Lena did not want to play any of 'those' kinds of games.
At first I thought Lena was just going to sniff my rear end. I'm good with that, it's pretty normal amongst us dogs, really. But then she started trying to put small rocks in my ass. I did not want small rocks put in my ass, so I shook my hips and gave a small Grrrr. Lena just giggled and held me tighter, then she tried, again, to put small rocks in my ass. This was not a fun game. There are plenty of other games that are a whole lot of fun, but I did NOT like this one...
From "Not That Kind of Dog: Lena Dunham's Puppy Tells You What She's 'Learned'."
Then there was the time she picked up my super bestest favorite squeaky toy: it was orange and when you pushed your nose against it there came the most wonderful squeak, I could do it again and again. This time, however, Lena was naked and she put my super bestest favorite squeaky toy between her thighs and said "Make it squeak! Make it squeak!" Now, I think I have explained how much I loved this toy but something inside me told me this was not the right way to play the game, not the right way at all...
"My my what a sick perverted puppy Lena is. She needs psychiatric help immediately."
According to her book, her parents had her in front of a psychiatrist 2-3 times a week since she started putting pebbles inside her infant sister's vagina.
(my interpretation)
From "Not That Kind of Dog: Lena Dunham's Puppy Tells You What She's 'Learned'."
Now, I'm the kind of dog that likes peanut butter. Some dogs do, some dogs don't, but me -- I like peanut butter. Sure it sticks on the roof of your mouth, but if you keep licking it eventually goes away, and -- hey! -- you're licking peanut butter, so there isn't really a problem that I can see, as long as you like peanut butter.
So when Lena scooped a big spoonful of peanut butter out of the jar needless to say I was excited! My tail wagged and wagged and I could already practically taste it. But then Lena took the peanut butter and spread it between her naked butt cheeks: perfectly good peanut butter, I don't get it! Then I remembered: when Lena is naked it is not going to be one of the 'good' games. "You wanna lick?" she asked in this high sing-song voice as she knelt on the kitchen floor with peanut butter between her butt cheeks, and -- No -- I most decidedly did NOT want to lick...
EMD: "What's the Matter With Lena?"
Even better (according to Titus), Lena is hated by Conservatives because she "loves science".
LOL
"Loves science".
How funny is that?
Children often pretend the abuse isn't happening by imagining the abuser is someone else.
Like a ghost.
perhaps she really isn't aware that what she is saying means she has spent decades putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5, but it must be exhausting to live so delusionally.
I think we can move to the next thing kids do: kids abuse other kids because they were abused. It is common for sexual predators to have been victims of such heinous crimes, too.
This does come down to the parents of the girls, both of them. It is pretty obvious that Lena was abused in her own way. Both kids should have been taken from these parents, as they almost certainly would have, had they been poor and in public school where the neglect could have been noted.
- I like peanut butter. Sure it sticks on the roof of your mouth, but if you keep licking it eventually goes away, and -- hey! -- you're licking peanut butter, so there isn't really a problem
Even though it was obvious where you were going, I still LOL'd on that line.
Post a Comment