Lena Dunham might be very talented and nice as a person, but she bothers me. First of all, I can't get away from her. I don't find her show interesting, probably because I'm too old to "get" it.. I find it depressing.
So, that should be the end of the story. But.... she's everywhere! (She must have a good publicist.) She's at awards shows, being interviewed by all sorts of people, and her show and her character are being critiqued by everyone. I find the whole thing curious, so I've been paying attention- I'd say the general opinion on Lena is split 50-50, and peoples' opinions seem to be based on their gender. Women like her, men don't. Women like her because she's overweight and unattractive and has no problem taking her clothes off on her show and talking very openly about exactly what she wants when it comes to sex. They see her as the person who is going to finally release them from their own body image issues and sexual repression by men. Men don't like her because they find her unattractive and don't want to see her naked all the time.
So... it seems that Lena Dunham wants women to be able to treat sex the way men do. But we can't- we're wired differently. Just because she does what she does on tv, things won't change- in fact she's making it worse. Telling young women that sex should be something that you should be able to experience for fun with anyone you want and that you should be able to talk about freely and openly with whomever is harmful. Sex is something personal and beautiful- and, I believe, to be experienced with someone you are in love with. Casual, impersonal sex is something completely different, and because women are such emotional creatures, can be damaging. Because women, as much as they might try to act like guys, go and fall in love all the time.... maybe not on the show Girls, but in real life they do. And men don't. At least not all the time. They can compartmentalize. The combination is bad, and people get can get hurt, and usually it's the woman.
Another thing about men, Lena Dunham.... They don't want to watch tv to see you naked. If they're going to watch a naked woman for entertainment they want her to be beautiful. It doesn't make them bad people... it's just the way they are. That's why the women in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition are too good to be true- it's a fantasy. So, Lena, you're not changing anything for women, at least not in a good way.
I get sad about how crude and rude we are about sex as a society now, especially women. The more shocking and graphic you can be, the better... I'm not a prude- but I believe in boundaries. I joke about preserving my "feminine mystique"- but, deep down, I'm not really joking. Women lose their feminity when they try to act like men. And men love women because we are so different from them.
I remember my husband (one of 6 brothers, no sisters) standing in the bathroom door and watching me put my make-up on when we first got married. He said he loved watching me do girly things like that. Those kinds of things were mysterious and special to him, and exciting. I thought about that when I was in the bathroom at the gym yesterday and heard some high school girls loudly joking about their "camel toe." Nothing seems special anymore... or private or beautiful.
And speaking of privacy... that's a whole other subject that I've been mulling over, but this is getting too long. Maybe, if I'm still standing up here on my soap box, I'll write about that tomorrow.
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