Her book of personal essays, Not That Kind Of Girl, is released in the US on Tuesday, and Lena Dunham has explained her decision to include an essay about being date raped in college.
‘There are a few things in this book that I was terrified to put into the world, because I thought of the headline and people hearing third hand,’ she said in an interview with NPR, adding that she dreads the sensationalist headlines that will accompany the book’s release.
‘The chapter about date rape in the book was a really, really terrifying thing for me to put into the world because as important as the topic is, and we are also having this massive moment of cultural awareness about campus assault, which is a very gratifying thing to see and I hope it leads to incredible change but just honestly, the idea of seeing the fourth-hand UK* Daily Mail* headline: ‘Lena Dunham Tells All About Rape’ was a nightmare to me.’
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However, Lena says she felt it was important to share the experience, not just for girls who are going through similar stuff, but because it would actually be helpful for her to get it off her chest
‘Sharing that experience, I not only felt it was important because of what I seeing other young women go through, I felt it was important because of what it was going to give me spiritually to not be hiding that any more.’
The essay reveals that Lena was physically hurt after the experience and she went on to admit that it took her a long time to even recognise that she was actually raped, which is something many victims of date rape can relate to.
‘It was a painful experience physically and emotionally, and one I spent a long time trying to reconcile. At the time that it happened, it wasn't something I was able to be honest about. I was able to share pieces, but I sort of used the lens of humor, which has always been my default-mode to try to talk around it. And I said to this old friend in an email: "I spent so much time scared; I spent so much time ashamed. I don't feel that way any more, and it's not because of my job, it's not because of my boyfriend, it's not because of feminism, though all those things helped. It's because I told the story. And I still feel like myself and I feel less alone.’
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It wasn’t until she relayed what had happened to her best friend much later, and her friend telling her: ‘You were raped’ that Lena was fully able to acknowledge the attack.
‘I was not comfortable giving myself the clarity of that because the fact is I knew that I was at this party, drunk, waiting for attention, and somehow that felt like such a shameful starting off point that I didn’t know how to reconcile what had come after. But I knew that it wasn’t right, and I knew in some way that this experience had been forced on me,’ she said.
‘When my best friend used the term: ‘You were raped,’ I laughed at her and thought, ‘What an ambulance chasing drama queen,’ but later I felt this enormous gratitude to her for giving me that gift of that certainty. When I felt at my lowest about it, those words lifted me up.’
After the incident, Lena says she basically stopped going out, and quit alcohol for the remainder of her time in college: ‘I didn’t really go to any more parties,’ she said. ‘I just stopped going. I basically didn’t have a drink for the rest of college. I mean I really removed myself from that world. I started dating someone who was very hermetic and very sweet, and I basically removed myself from the social world as I’d known it.’
The full interview is at NPR and it's well worth a listen. Not That Kind Of Girl is out in the UK on 20 October.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.