[MeganC]

In school we were told that it didn't matter what a molester's intent was. All that mattered was that a crime had been committed.

Lena Dunham is a child molester who committed a lot of crimes against her sister and as a mother I have to wonder if Lena Dunham has molested other children? Now that there's all this publicity will more victims come forward?

[xerxes]

So at the age of 7 she had the means rea to commit sexual assault? Come on now..

Also, this:

$1:

Child therapists: Stop freaking out about Lena Dunham
Leading child sexual abuse experts weigh in on the childhood behaviors detailed in Dunham's memoir
TRACY CLARK-FLORY

It seems everyone and their mom wants to weigh in on whether Lena Dunham is a child molester. But there is only one kind of person that I actually want to hear from on this: experts. People who have devoted their lives to researching, treating and preventing child sexual abuse. Folks who are the most sensitively and acutely attuned to detecting abusive behavior. Professionals who actually have an empirical sense of what is normal childhood behavior.

Well, I found those people. The most expert of experts on this topic. And they say Lena Dunham is no child molester. Or, more accurately, the behaviors that Dunham describes in her memoir are not child sexual abuse.

David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, has devoted his career to researching child sexual abuse. He’s the author of such titles as “Sexually Victimized Children,” “Childhood Victimization,” “Child Sexual Abuse” and “Nursery Crimes.” I guess you could say he’s an expert on the topic? And this is what he had to tell me in response to claims that Dunham is a sexual abuser: “In the sexual abuse field, we generally do not consider children age 7 as sexual abusers.”

Instead, he explains, “we are concerned about children that age who are ‘sexually reactive,’ meaning sexualized in a developmentally inappropriate way” or “being aggressive toward and exploitive of” their siblings or peers. That’s because that behavior can be “the sign that they themselves has been abused or subjected to developmentally inappropriate material,” he said. As for whether Dunham’s behavior was “sexually reactive,” he says “a judgment would typically require more than a single episode, especially in younger children who may not be aware of norms.” He’s not exactly calling CPS, y’all.

But he’s only the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, so I decided to talk to some other sources.

Sharon Lamb, author of several research papers on child sexual abuse, including, “‘Normal’ Childhood Sexual Play and Games: Differentiating Play From Abuse,” says of Dunham, “This is really within the norms of childhood sexual behavior,” she says. “Absolutely.” When Lamb, who has provided courtroom psychological evaluations of sexual abuse in children, interviewed therapists for her other book, “Sex, Therapy, and Kids: Addressing Their Concerns Through Talk and Play,” she encountered lots of similar tales.

Lamb, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, notes that older siblings are often somewhat coercive of young siblings, and it’s the job of parents to help regulate that behavior. “If an older sibling was making a younger sibling drink a horrible concoction they made while pretending they were playing witches, that would be wrong,” she said. “It would be the same in imposing some kind of sexual play. It wouldn’t be sex offender wrong, it would be inappropriate and coercive and ‘you have to be nicer to your younger sister.’” Lamb notes that Dunham’s pebbles-in-vagina discovery would have been “a good opportunity to teach a little girl that you don’t play with other people’s private parts without their consent.”

The overreaction to incidents like this only serves to reinforce sexual shame in our culture. “It makes many adults ashamed of what was very normal sexual play in their childhood,” she says. “And it makes people buy into this idea that children themselves aren’t sexual, which is totally wrong.”

Amy Lang, a parenting and sexual health expert, told me, “First of all, it’s totally normal for kids to be curious about each other’s private parts and the fact that she checked out her sister’s vulva — not vagina, that’s inside and hard to see — is completely typical behavior.” As for bribing her sister for attention — via doing her hair, practice kissing, etc. — she says, “This isn’t exactly typical and in some ways, yes, it’s grooming, but in other ways, it’s merely a young girl, looking for affection and figuring out a ‘clever’ way to get it,” she says. “Was it OK? No — bribing never is OK, especially for sexual behavior.” She adds, “Any kind of kid sexual behavior can move from mere curiosity and play to becoming more concerning and more adult-like and sexualized. It seems from her story, it didn’t move much beyond practicing kissing — a totally typical 7-year-old girl behavior — and bribing. Siblings bribe each other to do all kinds of things, good, bad or ugly.”

So some of the behaviors that Dunham describes are perfectly healthy and normal. Some amount to “bad” behavior. None amount to “sexual abuser” or “child molester.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/04/child_therapists_stop_freaking_out_about_lena_dunham/

[Lemmy]

Xort Xort:

New York allows children 7 years and older to be arrested and charged and convicted of crimes.

I don't live in New York.

Xort Xort:

As to the your claim of lack of intent she acted of her own will so she had at least basic intent as well as oblique intent.

Better brush up on the law books, dummy.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

xerxes xerxes:

So at the age of 7 she had the means rea to commit sexual assault? Come on now..

Also, this:

$1:

Child therapists: Stop freaking out about Lena Dunham
Leading child sexual abuse experts weigh in on the childhood behaviors detailed in Dunham's memoir
TRACY CLARK-FLORY

It seems everyone and their mom wants to weigh in on whether Lena Dunham is a child molester. But there is only one kind of person that I actually want to hear from on this: experts. People who have devoted their lives to researching, treating and preventing child sexual abuse. Folks who are the most sensitively and acutely attuned to detecting abusive behavior. Professionals who actually have an empirical sense of what is normal childhood behavior.

Well, I found those people. The most expert of experts on this topic. And they say Lena Dunham is no child molester. Or, more accurately, the behaviors that Dunham describes in her memoir are not child sexual abuse.

David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, has devoted his career to researching child sexual abuse. He’s the author of such titles as “Sexually Victimized Children,” “Childhood Victimization,” “Child Sexual Abuse” and “Nursery Crimes.” I guess you could say he’s an expert on the topic? And this is what he had to tell me in response to claims that Dunham is a sexual abuser: “In the sexual abuse field, we generally do not consider children age 7 as sexual abusers.”

Instead, he explains, “we are concerned about children that age who are ‘sexually reactive,’ meaning sexualized in a developmentally inappropriate way” or “being aggressive toward and exploitive of” their siblings or peers. That’s because that behavior can be “the sign that they themselves has been abused or subjected to developmentally inappropriate material,” he said. As for whether Dunham’s behavior was “sexually reactive,” he says “a judgment would typically require more than a single episode, especially in younger children who may not be aware of norms.” He’s not exactly calling CPS, y’all.

But he’s only the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, so I decided to talk to some other sources.

Sharon Lamb, author of several research papers on child sexual abuse, including, “‘Normal’ Childhood Sexual Play and Games: Differentiating Play From Abuse,” says of Dunham, “This is really within the norms of childhood sexual behavior,” she says. “Absolutely.” When Lamb, who has provided courtroom psychological evaluations of sexual abuse in children, interviewed therapists for her other book, “Sex, Therapy, and Kids: Addressing Their Concerns Through Talk and Play,” she encountered lots of similar tales.

Lamb, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, notes that older siblings are often somewhat coercive of young siblings, and it’s the job of parents to help regulate that behavior. “If an older sibling was making a younger sibling drink a horrible concoction they made while pretending they were playing witches, that would be wrong,” she said. “It would be the same in imposing some kind of sexual play. It wouldn’t be sex offender wrong, it would be inappropriate and coercive and ‘you have to be nicer to your younger sister.’” Lamb notes that Dunham’s pebbles-in-vagina discovery would have been “a good opportunity to teach a little girl that you don’t play with other people’s private parts without their consent.”

The overreaction to incidents like this only serves to reinforce sexual shame in our culture. “It makes many adults ashamed of what was very normal sexual play in their childhood,” she says. “And it makes people buy into this idea that children themselves aren’t sexual, which is totally wrong.”

Amy Lang, a parenting and sexual health expert, told me, “First of all, it’s totally normal for kids to be curious about each other’s private parts and the fact that she checked out her sister’s vulva — not vagina, that’s inside and hard to see — is completely typical behavior.” As for bribing her sister for attention — via doing her hair, practice kissing, etc. — she says, “This isn’t exactly typical and in some ways, yes, it’s grooming, but in other ways, it’s merely a young girl, looking for affection and figuring out a ‘clever’ way to get it,” she says. “Was it OK? No — bribing never is OK, especially for sexual behavior.” She adds, “Any kind of kid sexual behavior can move from mere curiosity and play to becoming more concerning and more adult-like and sexualized. It seems from her story, it didn’t move much beyond practicing kissing — a totally typical 7-year-old girl behavior — and bribing. Siblings bribe each other to do all kinds of things, good, bad or ugly.”

So some of the behaviors that Dunham describes are perfectly healthy and normal. Some amount to “bad” behavior. None amount to “sexual abuser” or “child molester.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/04/child_therapists_stop_freaking_out_about_lena_dunham/

Love how everyone wants to concentrate on the fact she was "only" 7. Yeah, she may have been 7 when it started and in that case it was probably just a case of curiosity. I know I first became interested in what girls had "down there" when I was just 4-5 years old.
But in Lena's case she was at it for 10 years. And that's what you and the "experts" seem to be ignoring. At 7 it can certainly be called "curiosity". At 15, 16, 17 years old, not so much.

[Xort]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Xort Xort:

New York allows children 7 years and older to be arrested and charged and convicted of crimes.

I don't live in New York.

The person in question did at the time.

$1:

Better brush up on the law books, dummy.

I've been wanting to try this; You are so ignorant I can't even explain why you are wrong, that's how stupid you are.

Not very satisfying.

I will point out that you didn't even start to explain why she didn't have intent to touch her sister. Or even better how an action replicated by an older more male attacker wouldn't also fail your personal standard for intent.

[Lemmy]

Xortbus Xortbus:

I will point out that you didn't even start to explain why she didn't have intent to touch her sister.

Yeah, I did. Young children cannot form criminal intent, whether their actions are intentional or not.

Xortbus Xortbus:

Or even better how an action replicated by an older more male attacker wouldn't also fail your personal standard for intent.

An older male wasn't involved. So your point is moot. And the legal standard for mens rea is not my personal standard. It's the standard in virtually every western legal system.

You're misusing the term "intent", as well as "basic intent" and "oblique intent". How the hell do you conclude that there's "oblique intent"? Did you just read that term yesterday and decide to throw it in?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Xortbus Xortbus:

I will point out that you didn't even start to explain why she didn't have intent to touch her sister.

Yeah, I did. Young children cannot form criminal intent, whether their actions are intentional or not.

Once again the focus here seems to be on 7 year old Lena and not what went on for 10 years after. Are you suggesting that a 15,16 or 17 yr old is unable to form criminal intent? Are you suggesting that a 15, 16, 17 yr old doesn't know better than to diddle her little sister?

[andyt]

Did she diddle her sister at 17? The excerpt quoted in this thread didn't say. A quote showing that she did so would be nice. Of course if she did, that is clear sexual abuse/incest.

[Lemmy]

andyt andyt:

Did she diddle her sister at 17? The excerpt quoted in this thread didn't say. A quote showing that she did so would be nice. Of course if she did, that is clear sexual abuse/incest.

^^^^^
Ditto.

[andyt]

this is certainly a creepy story. Sounds like natural curiosity and sex play continued on well past where it's usually dropped and then becomes interest in others. These two maintained some kind of eroticized bond. Her sister says she's gay, so there's that, don't know what Dunhams status is on the GLTQOABXYZ spectrum.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

Did she diddle her sister at 17? The excerpt quoted in this thread didn't say. A quote showing that she did so would be nice. Of course if she did, that is clear sexual abuse/incest.

Right, because despite her engaging in that activity since she was 7, she suddenly stopped when she became a teenager?
Or maybe Ms. Dunham was just smart enough to not admit to a crime in writing.

[Zipperfish]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

xerxes xerxes:

Ignore him. The right found a new object for its regularly scheduled 2 minute hate.

Actually you guys have been having a bad week, haven't you? First your wunderkid Ghomeshi turns out to be a sexual assaulter. Then "the voice of her generation" gets mad when she gets quoted boasting about her early days as a sister Molister. I even heard one yesterday about how Polanski is still trying to worm his way back to America, but no joy for Roman.

So yeah that's a lot of misery for the left, but we on the right must control our schadenfraude, because there were also innocent victims of the leftist sleaze wave.

Ghomeshi was the host of a music/cultural show. How is he "the voice of the left."

[Zipperfish]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Right, because despite her engaging in that activity since she was 7, she suddenly stopped when she became a teenager?
Or maybe Ms. Dunham was just smart enough to not admit to a crime in writing.

Maybe. Speculation either way.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

andyt andyt:

Did she diddle her sister at 17? The excerpt quoted in this thread didn't say. A quote showing that she did so would be nice. Of course if she did, that is clear sexual abuse/incest.

Right, because despite her engaging in that activity since she was 7, she suddenly stopped when she became a teenager?
Or maybe Ms. Dunham was just smart enough to not admit to a crime in writing.

You never played doctor as a kid? Most of us did, most of us stopped for a bit before getting back into it after puberty. Are we all child abusers now too?

Everything we know about what she did is from her self-revelations. certainly sounds a bit creepy to me, but I'll take her at her word about what actually happened. If she's smart enough not to incriminate herself, she's smart enough to not even bring up the subject if she did abuse her sister. Seems to me you can't have it both ways - take her word for what happened, but then say she's lying.

[martin14]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Ghomeshi was the host of a music/cultural show. How is he "the voice of the left."

Because maclean's says he is.

$1:

Since Ghomeshi’s Facebook post emerged, a large number of Canadians have rushed to the radio host’s defence with almost lightning speed and, sometimes, unadulterated glee. Affirmative posts underneath the host’s Facebook status urge him to keep his chin up, and keep fighting the good fight. Ghomeshi is a voice of liberal reason, after all, an annoyingly affable metrosexual who has hosted radio segments about the meaning of rape culture. Not so long ago, he was on the air telling Anne Marie Owens, editor-in-chief of the National Post—formerly deputy editor of Maclean’s—how special it was that a woman had finally earned the top spot at a Canadian newspaper. It may be this progressive zeal, and his friendly disposition, that’s made his fans discount even the slightest possibility that his accusers might be telling the truth—as though social enlightenment precludes criminal behaviour.

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/sex- ... d-the-cbc/