The headline at the Daily Caller:
Gawker Thinks They Found
Lena Dunham’s Alleged Rapist
… And He’s A Democrat
The interesting thing about the Gawker story by J.K. Trotter is that Trotter seems to have the idea that he is vindicating Dunham and discrediting Dunham’s conservative critics. Her published account — which identified a Republican named “Barry” as having raped her — was exposed as fraudulent by John Nolte of Breitbart.com, and Dunham was forced to apologize. Yet, Trotter’s story at Gawker insists that Dunham actually was raped while at Oberlin College:
The 2012 proposal for Not That Kind of Girl recounted the same night of unwanted unprotected sex — and supplied enough specific biographical detail to identify the man being described.
His name is Philip Samuel Ungar, a 2006 graduate of Oberlin. Now 30, he’s the son of former All Things Considered host and retired Goucher College president Sanford J. Ungar. Dunham has never explicitly named him, but his biography closely aligns with her characterization of her alleged rapist—“His father was actually the former host of NPR’s All Things Considered” — in an early draft of the chapter where she describes being assaulted.
Whether or not Philip Ungar is a rapist, he is evidently a liberal Democrat, not a conservative Republican, so if Gawker’s story is correct, this has only further damaged Dunham’s credibility, exposing her as having engaged in a deliberate partisan smear.
There is no such thing as partial credibility. Once a source has proven that they are willing to lie — deliberately and consciously — they lose all credibility, and Dunham has proven herself a liar.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
If Lena Dunham says Philip Ungar is a rapist? This means Philip Ungar is probably a nice guy, even if he is a liberal Democrat.
Why would I mansplain Dunhams fierce fee-fees?
Yes, the legal side of this appears to be less clear cut than I originally thought.
Gawker? Isn’t that the company being sued for intern slavery (the highly profitable trendy [progressive] form of slavery) and then taking their ill-gotten earnings off the practice and hiding them in the Cayman Islands.
Did you mean “fee-fees”? Cuz that’s the feminist legal term for equal protection.
The technical term — used by sane people — is “regret rape” (meaning: NOT rape, but instead feminist bullcrap). The male “gender” must pay for endless oppression and be collectively forced to sign a collective confession to being a “rape gender.” (I learned that in my “Social Justice” required college class.)
What would she charge him with? Removal of a condom without authorization while drunk?
Actually, she referred to it as “rape” on both Howard Stern’s show and on an NPR interview. And then there’s a line in her old manuscript, about a sentence after her story, where her friend calls it “rape” and she doesn’t challenge it.
Other than that, you’re right. She never does call it “rape”.
Why is she holding a piece of back bacon in her mouth?
If Eugene Volokh is to be believed, and I have been linked to multiple times by other commentators, defamation lawsuits can be successful even if the defendant did not intend to defame the plaintiff, or even know the plaintiff.
Your insistence that the publishing house has essentially admitted that the defamation was intentional by paying their legal fees is just simply wrong.
It’s a nice distinction whether she intended to libel “Barry”. My thought is that she didn’t want to libel Barry qua Barry, but rather that he was a convenient avatar for her real target. She maliciously wanted to trash conservatives / Republicans, he was one of (no doubt a tiny number) that she knew, and so she chose him as her alleged attacker. That she didn’t respond to his requests to clear his name until staring down the barrel of a lawsuit tells me that she acted with intent, probably because she’s so damned stupid and arrogant that she thought nothing would come of it.
Which, I think, is how most people find themselves on the losing side of a libel action.
Your argument basically hinges on the idea that she would not have made money, got a book deal, got a television show, etc. was it not for her saying she had been sexually assaulted. You know that is absurd.
As far as the defamation of “Barry”, I fully agree that it was an unfortunate thing to have happened. Regardless of Dunham’s intention, that was the result, but both her and her publisher are acting to fix that, aren’t they?
Mata Hairy, more like.
I’m lucky: SJW hadn’t quite caught on when I was in college, and anyway I was an STEM major, where there’s rather less room for touch-feely idiocy (though the global warming hoaxers are doing much to change that).
Are they? What are they doing to “fix that” beyond (further) altering her story so that “Barry” isn’t implicated to future purchasers of her book? Have the apologized? Issued a statement clearing him?
Or are they merely engaging in ex post fact CYA?
It may just be a matter of my assumption that most people would not be stupid and malicious enough to intentionally libel a completely innocent person. I could be wrong, I don’t know her personally of course. It’s also possible she selected the name “Barry” because it represented “conservative” to her, in some way.
All in all, though, I remain unconvinced that it was intentional. She disparages conservative throughout her body of work, so if it is true that the guy she says sexually assaulted her was conservative, it doesn’t seem particularly special.
My thoughts would all change, of course, if she is fabricating it all. She may be, but I don’t think there is any real evidence of that besides the “she’s a liar so she’s lying” line of reasoning. The defamation of “Barry”, inadvertent or not, almost seems like a separate issue, though important.
Yes they have offered to pay his legal fees and Lena Dunham put this out (this is the first paragraph):
“It has been almost a decade since I was sexually assaulted. It took me a long time to fully acknowledge what had happened and even longer to discuss it publicly, in the form of an essay in my book Not That Kind of Girl. When I finally decided to share my story, it had ambiguities and gray areas, because that’s what I experienced, because that’s what so many of us have experienced. As indicated in the beginning of the book, I made the choice to keep certain identities private, changing names and some descriptive details. 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.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lenadunham/lena-dunham-why-i-chose-to-speak-out
Just as you obviously know that “unreliable narrator” is just double-speak for “liar.”
Idiotic hobbyism regarding sex crime is destroying forty years of real progress in real courts working on real rape cases.
But that legislative, police, and bureaucratic work was largely done by Republicans and conservatives — so I guess on the whole it would have been better to let women keep getting raped in order to prove that leftists are always in the right.
What is it with libs and lying? They are attracted to it like a moth to a flame.
Well, that may get her off the hook. Nice of her to do it after she was threatened with a lawsuit, but stupid is as stupid does.
“She lives in Mojave in a Winnebago”
No.
It’s about Dunham jumping on a political movement that is hellbent on condemning all men as rapists, even at the cost of destroying the public trust necessary for the real legal system to address real sex crimes.
“Rapist” and “Racist” are life-altering slurs.
And it sure doesn’t help that her performance is singlehandedly pumping life back into Matthew Hale’s cautionary warning.
When a person self-identifies as an “unreliable narrator”, is forced to issue a statement that the person she identified as assaulting her isn’t the person that she FOR MONTHS let people think assaulted her, lets people use the word “rape” when she (sometimes) doesn’t claim that she was raped, then I’d say that “liar” is a very reasonable term to use. We’re not talking about a tall tale or locker room boasting that we all (wink-wink-nudge-nudge) know is a load of hooey. Frankly, I’m not convinced that she was assaulted, had sex, or did much of anything on the night in question other than get stoned and / or drunk (if that). This, I think, is also reasonable: when a person is shown to be lying about part of a story and there’s not a scrap of evidence to back them up, it’s not unreasonable to think that they are lying about all of it. This is why the burden of proof in court is on the accuser as it’s (A) unfair to make a person prove that he didn’t commit a crime and (B) it’s damned hard to prove a negative.
May I add that people have spent a great deal of time feeling sorry for Lena. What about “Barry” and, now, Philip Samuel Ungar? Or do the “feelings” of men who’ve been accused, tried and convicted of rape in the media not count for anything?
“I simply doubt that she’s a sociopath that would choose a random person to defame in her publicly released book.”
What evidence do you have that would cause you to doubt this?
The statistical representation of sociopaths in the population causes me to start with the prior assumption that she is not a sociopath, rather than the assumption that she is.
“Spreading rumors as truth.”
I think that was one of the subtitle lines that didn’t make it on her book’s jacket.
Yea, but I suppose also that if this was all inadvertent, she wouldn’t know to respond until the lawsuit was being theatened… Breitbart released their investigation on 12/3, her response came 12/9 – I’m not sure when the publisher / Dunham were aware of “Barry” trying to contact them.
Thank you.
But do you remember anything from the experience?
‘Coz maybe they were mustachioed musicians. Probably college Republicans, to boot. You never know about these details until it’s too late.
Well, it is widely known that most peoples’ memories are not particularly reliable, especially in regards to traumatic events. I don’t see someone simply admitting they are not a “reliable narrator” as admitting they are a liar. What if she said “my memory is a bit hazy, but -“?
To your second point, no I’m not defending her if she’s lying. I’m just stating that it isn’t surprising that she would note that he is conservative and speak badly of that fact if he was.
Words mean things, and substituting “sexual assault” for “rape” doesn’t change that. Suck it up and admit she lied.
Admit she lied about what specifically, or just a global statement that she has lied before?
“Too stupid to do a simple Google search” is pretty faint praise…
Shades of the old joke, “What’s an Australian ’10’? A 4 with a six-pack of Foster’s.”
The truth doesn’t produce the right results for them, so they have to lie.
Just when I thought she couldn’t go any lower, Lena Dunham limbos under the wire again.
Pretty much everything, so the latter.
I didn’t say any of the things you attribute to me. What is about “potential” and “claim” you do not understand? Yes, specious claims are made all the time. Yet, publishing houses do not settle claims “just because.” In defamation cases, truth is a complete defense. Any reasonable observer would view the sum total of all the revelations and believe that actionable defamation occurred. Thus, the settlement offer. Is it technically an “admission.” No. Is it an acknowledgment of potential exposure? Most definitely, “yes.”
For example, our host has linked a name to the handle, “blder.” if he were to write, “the commenter who goes by ‘blder’ is guilty of ][heinous crime/act] such that newspapers would begin searching for you, would you not feel defamed? Would that be true, even if our host included a caveat that he is/was an “unreliable narrator?”
Now, assume he published those same allegations in a book. A publisher, through an editor, who reviews that manuscript should inquire what proof exists that allegations are true, if you can be reasonably identified. If a publisher fails to do that, the publisher is, at best, reckless. At worst, the failure to make inquiry is an intentional abrogation of the duty to not publish falsehoods.
That you seem to be unable to see that is indicative of your blindness to the sort of fairness and “social justice” which the Progressive Left claims to espouse, not to mention abject intellectual dishonesty.
None of this matters. Dunham signed her name to the book, it is her responsibility that someone else who could be plausibly identified was slandered in her book. All the rest is noise.
That said, this “If Lena Dunham says Philip Ungar is a rapist? This means Philip Ungar is probably a nice guy, even if he is a liberal Democrat.” is pretty sick.
Feminists and anti-feminists have a lot in common. Sisters under the skin?
I expressed no opinion regarding a causal connection between that particular tidbit in her memoir and publication. Rather, she has set herself up as a self-proclaimed “voice of a generation.” Her entire schtick is predicated upon it. Her “memoir” was written to take advantage of that. Really, your flailing around reminds me of someone who’s drowning grabbing any scrap of flotsam within reach to stay afloat. Give it up, already.
I wonder if he talked to her after the rape in that sonorous, boring, self righteous tone shared by every NPR host from Nina Totenberg to Noah Adams
You’re really reaching. We’re talking about a crime (which it is, whether she wants to prosecute or not). It’s one thing to be a bit “hazy” on relatively minor details (“I’m not sure if he was wearing a red sweater or a red polo”); one doesn’t get to claim “hazy” on something like a rape happening.
Further, which is it? Either the rape happened as she described it in her book (or in the proposal… or in various interviews… or her “clarification”…) or it didn’t. What part is she “hazy” on? The alleged attacker jamming his fingers into her when she went to take a leak? Her friend “Fred” trying to talk her out of it? Talking dirty to her attacker? 69ing with him? The condom magically winding up hanging from her roommate’s tree? Doing it on the ragged rug her dorm room? That nobody came?
Her story isn’t, “I blacked out and woke up battered and bleeding in a stranger’s room with some guy leering, ‘Was it good for you?'” She seems quite clear about precisely what happened, where it happened, how it happened, and who did what. Her only want of “clarity” is in whether she wants to call it a “rape” or mere “sexual assault”. And, of course, the unfortunate coincidence of blaming a prominent conservative called “Barry” when there happens to have been a prominent conservative student called Barry at Oberlin at the time. Not that she wants to BLAME him, of course; she just wants to “expose her shame”, which is why she told so many details. About him.
Finally, my personal experiences with the effects of trauma on memory are limited to:
— A fellow of my acquaintance who remembers with great clarity his experiences as a sniper in Vietnam nearly fifty years ago. His problem isn’t a hazy memory: it’s a memory that is all too clear. I add that he’s not an “unreliable narrator”; to the contrary, he doesn’t talk about it very much at all
— A woman of my acquaintance who was raped (not “sexually assaulted”; she was unquestionably and viciously raped). She, too, has quite clear memories of the event… and wishes that she didn’t
NB: For all the flak that Dunham has gotten from conservatives (richly deserved, IMO), I daresay that, if she actually WAS raped, any one of us would be very happy to send the SOB to prison if a convincing case could be made against him in court. This, of course, highlights the differences between us nasty ol’ “rape deniers” and sensitive, delicate… er… I mean, tough, competent feminists and their supporters:
1. We’ve got a hang-up about little things like evidence, presumption of innocence, reasonable doubt and due process
2. We’re interested in punishing criminals to try to stop them doing it again, not navel-gazing about crimes years later to show how “strong” we are or that we’re in a more loving place while the villain stays at liberty to do it again
she’s fat also
I believe the point is that Mr. Ungar is probably just another unfortunate person potentially destroyed by an uncaring and unreliable narrator. If you have mistaken the ‘probably a nice guy’ comment to be somehow supportive of rape or a particular actual rapist, then let me assure you that you have reached an erroneous conclusion.
If his dad worked for NPR, he probably went to Young Commie League summer camp and was a member of the Huey Newton Brigade at some progressive private school in Manhattan.
If memories fail and “it’s commonly known” and are unreliable, then we should get rid of courts and laws and trials which rely on human testimony, evidence and the presumption that people will abide by an oath to tell the truth.
Really, your comments are taking on the quality of letters from German soldiers stuck in Stalingrad this time in 1942. Unreasonable hope of rescue from an untenable situation.
That’s a bit harsh.
I wrote,
“I think that some of your claims are a bit of a stretch. Dunham’s publisher offering to pay the legal fees of “Barry” may be an admission that he was defamed, but it is absolutely not an admission that it was intentional, which is what matters, isn’t it? Not to Barry, obviously, but one can obviously cause harm to another unintentionally.”
You wrote,
“Defamation is, by definition, an intention tort. Try again.”
So I fail to see how my following statement is incorrect:
“Your insistence that the publishing house has essentially admitted that the defamation was intentional by paying their legal fees is just simply wrong.”
I’m not speaking in legal terms. When I say paying the legal fees does not prove Dunham intended to defame “Barry”, I mean just that. I admit from point one that they clearly felt like they were exposed and wanted to close that window.
I think he’s still working on Reagan getting campaign contributions from Mr. Cigarette or selling crack in the black community. He has one lined up of Cheney introducing HIV in the gay bathhouses. I think the character Mark Slackmeyer is going to get it from his Republican butt buddy Chase.
“I suggest you scroll down toward the end and read my comment about my experience with a loved one who endured a real sexual assault but who did not get a damn parade, a television series and a book deal as a result..”
That’s literally exactly what you did.