The Asshat Thread

[Radbird]

Palin Attacks Media for Duggar-Lena Dunham Double Standard

[Jocephus]

i think the difference to me is that lena doesn't say people are going to hell for things they've done. (maybe im wrong i dont know much about her). its weird too, regarding the duggars. i imagine they suppress sex talk and/or promote abstinence yet the parents get it on more than anyone. and quite frankly, i imagine if they didn't have political and corporate backers, they'd couldn't realistically live in this world they've created.



fear, shame, bigotry...where do i sign up?!

[ghostrunner]

You'd think Palin would understand the free market often dictates what gets covered by the media.

[Vidor]

Palin Attacks Media for Duggar-Lena Dunham Double Standard

I hate to say this, but...the more I think about this the more I think Palin might have a point. Duggar sure is a much easier target, since he's from a family of wingnut freaks and he himself is a holy roller wingnut freak. Dunham of course is a woman and a darling of feminists, and she has that show that nobody watches but has provided grist for ten million internet articles, so she's untouchable. But it's not obvious to me why what one person did is so much worse than what the other did, since, as already noted, Duggar was a 13-year-old child himself.

[Freed Roger]

Glad I don't know who Dunham is. Wish I still never heard of Duggars or Sarah Palin.

[heyzeus]

Well, there are a few differences between Dunham and Duggar. For one, Lena Dunham has a tv show. She is not the (former) executive director of a powerful lobbying group that pushes laws and makes public statements directly equating homosexuals with pedophiles. So there's rightfully a bit more public interest in Josh Duggar's past based on his political efforts to criminalize innocent homosexuals when he himself molested his siblings. Second, and this shouldn't be too tough to grasp, unconsented touching between a 15 year old and 2-5 year olds is a wee bit different than a 7 year old notifying her mom that her 1 year old sister has put pebbles in her vagina. Or even a teenager laying in bed and touching only herself but NOT TOUCHING 5 OR MORE TINY CHILDREN.

Political talking points tend to fall apart when their animus is just scoring cheap points or trying to downplay something very bad that happened within your own camp by drawing an attenuated analogy to some dissimilar thing in your opponents' camp.

[Vidor]

Well, there are a few differences between Dunham and Duggar. For one, Lena Dunham has a tv show. She is not the (former) executive director of a powerful lobbying group that pushes laws and makes public statements directly equating homosexuals with pedophiles. So there's rightfully a bit more public interest in Josh Duggar's past based on his political efforts to criminalize innocent homosexuals when he himself molested his siblings. Second, and this shouldn't be too tough to grasp, unconsented touching between a 15 year old and 2-5 year olds is a wee bit different than a 7 year old notifying her mom that her 1 year old sister has put pebbles in her vagina. Or even a teenager laying in bed and touching only herself but NOT TOUCHING 5 OR MORE TINY CHILDREN.

Political talking points tend to fall apart when their animus is just scoring cheap points or trying to downplay something very bad that happened within your own camp by drawing an attenuated analogy to some dissimilar thing in your opponents' camp.

Well, you admit that the public discourse has been shaped more by who these people are than what they did. And correct me if I'm wrong, but Dunham actually admitted to manually manipulating her little sister, not just "notifying her mom".

[heyzeus]

Well, you admit that the public discourse has been shaped more by who these people are than what they did. And correct me if I'm wrong, but Dunham actually admitted to manually manipulating her little sister, not just "notifying her mom".

I'm not the foremost authority on Lena Dunham's exploits as a seven year old, but I believe the story is that she looked in her 1 year old sister's vagina because the sister had shoved pebbles in there, then notified the mom. Which is very unlike a 15 year old fondling the genitalia of 2-5 year old siblings.

[Socnorb11]

According to Lena Dunham's book, she used her sister, “essentially as a sexual outlet, bribing her to kiss her for prolonged periods and even masturbating while she is in the bed beside her", and "anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl".

That doesn't sound to me like a 7 year old and a 1 year old.


Splitting hairs between touching a breast and kissing/masturbating/preying doesn't seem productive to me. Both Duggar and Dunham molested a child. Neither of them deserves a pass.


To me the biggest difference is that, even as an adult, Dunham doesn't seem to understand that what she did was wrong. In fact, to some degree, she glorifies it to sell books.

[doe_boy]

I wouldn't want to have sex with Duggars or Dunhams. Now or in the past.

Not my types.