I wish to start off this discussion with yes, there is a problem of rape on college campuses. It does need to be addressed. There is no reason a young woman should have to fear that a man, or group of men might sexually assault her. Its not fun, its nothing to be proud of. Guys, don’t do it, respect other people, including women.
Now, having said that I can move on to this claim by Lena Dunham. Was she raped in college? Its very possible. Let’s start with the claim.
Dunham states in her book that while in college she was raped by a man named ‘Berry’. Berry was a prominent republican on campus and even had his own radio show.
Now, right here is where I always had the problem with Dunham’s story.
Why was it so important to the story in the book about naming Barry a Republican? It makes no sense at all unless one is trying to tar and feather an entire group of people. The reasoning never came forth at all, and makes even less sense later on as people began investigating it.
In fact, it came out that ‘Barry’ was a made up name for her rapist. A couple of days ago she finally made the following statement:
“To be very clear, ‘Barry’ is a pseudonym, not the name of the man who assaulted me, and any resemblance to a person with this name is an unfortunate and surreal coincidence. I am sorry about all he has experienced.”
So instead, a man who went to the college at that time, and was named Barry, had to hire a lawyer, and has spent months demanding something from either Dunham or her publisher to clear his name.
Perhaps is she had come clean about the name back in October, people might look better upon Dunham. Instead she allowed this to fester for some unknown reason.
So while there is a problem on campuses, this entire ordeal has done nothing to help out those who have been raped. In fact, by making such a story, inserting a false name, claiming he was a Republican, Dunham made a mockery of the issue.