Since I don’t want to spend hours explaining the backstory for this, let’s see if we can knock it out in a paragraph. In her memoir, Lena Dunham described being date-raped while in college. The conservative media – a group already primed to hate everything Lena does – went after her claims and tried to “fact check” her story. One conservative at the National Review even went so far as to make it into a cover story. Lena wrote that she had been raped by a College Republican named Barry, and the National Review found some dude named Barry who went to college at the same time as Lena and Barry says that he didn’t even know her. Thus, the conservative media believe Lena is made of lies. It’s like it never occurred to them that Lena gave her rapist a pseudonym.
So now it has to be explicitly stated. Lena’s publishers at Random House have agreed to “tweak” the chapter in Lena’s book so that it includes a note about “Barry” not being his real name. Random House will also cover the legal fees of the real-life Barry-Who-Never-Met-Lena. You can read more about the situation here at THR. The lawyer dealing with Random House sounds like a tool.
Meanwhile, Lena wrote an essay about her rape for Buzzfeed – go here to read the whole piece. In the piece, she once again reiterated that Barry was a pseudonym.
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.
Speaking out was never about exposing the man who assaulted me. Rather, it was about exposing my shame, letting it dry out in the sun. I did not wish to be contacted by him or to open a criminal investigation. I am in a loving and peaceful place in my life and I am not willing to sacrifice any more of it for this person I do not know, aside from one night I will never forget. That is my choice.
She’s goes on at length, using the language of a person who has survived a rape and made peace with it, and she says she never wanted to or will file any kind of criminal complaint. Everything about the essay is very well-written, and I hope that her words are able to help any sexual assault victim.
…But I still think she’s trying to reposition herself as a victim following the massive clusterwhoops of her detailed account of her inappropriate behavior with her sister.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I think it is very telling that we’re in a place where the discussion is still being redirected toward trying to find some fault with the victim. Not commenting on Lena’s decisions as an author in the memoir, just that I think the way the conversation about her rape story played out supports what she’s saying in her response.
I think it’s possible to take in Lena’s story about her assault and support the decisions she’s made as a survivor, while also questioning how she described her relationship and behavior toward her younger sister in her memoir. I think she could have had turned those stories into an opportunity to talk about consent and boundaries, and how important those things are to discuss with young children. Instead, it became another in an exhaustive/exhausting series of “look at what a weird kid I was, surely that means I’m an artists” anecdotes. And the cavalier attitude with which she described her behavior toward her sister disturbed a lot of people, myself included. So I agree with Kaiser, that she’s attempting some damage control while also sharing her very real story of survival.
Well, the problem as I understand it, is that she didn’t make it clear in her book at all that Barry was a pseudonym. And, since there happened to be a republican Barry on campus at the same time, he is supposedly getting harassed, which isn’t fair to him. Not defending the website in going to check out her story, but she and the publisher are at fault here as well.
Yes, it should have been clear that Barry was a pseudonym. Especially given the sensitive nature of the account. I don’t follow her other than what I see her but I find her to be a confused young woman who angrily lashes out in passive-aggressive ways and then gets defensive when called out on it. That being said, her publisher should have caught this long before it went to press.
I agree. I haven’t read the book, but generally in situations like that, the author will either note right there in the context of the story that the name has been changed, or say something like “for the sake of anonymity, let’s call him Barry.”
I do find it gross that this website is working so hard to try to discredit a victim of assault though, and that some poor guy got harassed for no reason.
I do find it really odd though that Lena chose to clarify this now, but is pretty much silent on the stuff with her sister. Maybe her publicist issued a “no talking about that” decree.
She’s not responsible for what her attacker did. She’s not responsible for how the media responded to her memoir about it. But she is responsible for sitting for two months letting this poor guy who was NOT the attacker twist in the wind while he was being hounded by Breitbart et al. I say this as a person who had a similar unpleasant sexual experience with “gray areas” as a college student. Wouldn’t any one of us normal people, if we found out an innocent person was being pinpointed as our rapist, immediately seek to exonerate that person?
She has been disappointing in some of her interviews and the book was poorly thought out and orchestrated. But it was my understanding that this Barry guy wasn’t so much ‘a suspect’ ,with attention being drawn to him, until the National Review decided to test the veracity of her rape allegation and sought him out?
This. Likely nobody would have ever tied the two together without the National Review LOOKING for a college republican named Barry.
Is the book worth reading? I’m considering adding it to my list of books to read over the holidays.
Yep. That is exactly it and Random House has been cleaning up a lot of messes and shelling out a lot of money for Lena. I wonder how the book is doing because I feel that people are going to be out of a job as this whole this is just one, huge clusterf*&k.
Actually the guy named Barry, who was a Republican conservative campus leader was being harassed before National Review started checking out her story. It takes about two minutes of Googling to find the name of this man, since Barry is not a very common first name and the number of conservative Republicans at Oberlin is very small. He noticed that his LinkedIn account suddenly was receiving enormous traffic. People were definitely checking out to see if he was the one who raped her and abused other women.
He repeatedly asked Lena to specify that he was not the “Barry” she was referring to – and got no answer. Only when a lawsuit threatened did Random House get worried. What made her decide on that pseudonym anyway? Why not call him John? Was it her way of thumbing her nose at a well known campus conservative? I would not put that past her.
Why was his political party relevant? And how did she even know that? And as I understood this she did leave an innocent guy out there to deal with the press himself. That’s not right but she has never been real concerned with that it seems.
She should have clearly stated that the person was a composite or an alias/pseudonym.
The political party was relevant only in so far as she stated he was a member (leading member?) of the College Republicans. I didn’t read her book so I don’t know how much that aspect, she being a famous liberal, played into her agreeing to a date with him. But she gave specific details–besides the membership, that he deejayed or something on a college radio station, that he had a mustache, etc…I don’t know if this real-life Barry met that criteria or if there is still going to be looking around for a mustachioed Republican who worked at a radio station at that period.
The real life Barry did not work at a college radio station, nor did he have a mustache. However he did work in the library and he was the president of the College Republicans. In fact just Google College Republicans Barry Oberlin and his name comes right up. (You need to run a custom date range to avoid the articles about Lena Dunham, but if you run that search for the dates 2005 to August 2014, it is very obvious who he is) Which is what loads of people did. Surely Lena knew that people could and would do that? So why then use the name “Barry” as a pseudonym and then say that he was a leading Republican in fact the “campus’s resident conservative” , which the real life Barry was. And why not immediately say that this was a pseudonym? She has known this fellow was distressed for two months at least.
It was a nasty thing to do. (Maybe she figures that since he is a conservative Republican it does not matter since those people are “evil” anyway.)
My understanding is that when using other pseudonyms in her book, she addressed them as such. Not so with Barry. I guess it could be a mistake if she failed to mention other names were pseudonyms. If this was the only one, that’s another issue.
I haven’t read her book but isn’t it typical to have a blanket statement upfront that says “all names have been changed” or some such language to clarify that all the names are pseudonyms and not just a select few? Or if she was inconsistent with that shouldn’t her editor(s) have caught that?
Lena might be a tool but it seems some fault lies with her publisher for not locking down these details.
I don’t believe a word she wrote… It should be on the Fiction shelves.
It should be noted that when Dunham referred to an ex-boyfriend earlier in the book, she specifically stated that she would be using a pseudonym to refer to him.
She did not provide any such statement with regard to “Barry.”
We know for a fact that nearly six weeks ago, Dunham herself was aware of the agony her memoir caused Barry One. And yet, rather than exonerate an innocent man she knew was twisting in the wind, she attacked the National Review author who told Barry’s story.
6. How did Lena Dunham choose the name Barry? Moreover, no less than five descriptors in Dunham’s memoir led who-knows-how-many people to believe Barry One was her rapist
1) Barry One attended Oberlin at the same time Dunham did. 2) Barry One shares the same first name — a very uncommon name. 3) Barry One was a campus Republican. 4) Barry One was a prominent campus Republican. 5) Barry One worked at one of the Oberlin campus libraries.
The details anyone could easily Google led right to Barry One.
I think Lena is going to be sued, and I think she’s going to have to pay a large settlement.
Isn’t this just too much to be coincidence? Unless, this Barry really IS the rapist, or Lena doesn’t like this guy and she has made this up. I am really starting to wonder how much of her book is even true. If she indicated clearly all characters which had pseudonyms, with the exception of Barry, AND she left people to falsely believe he raped her, WHY? None of this adds up. Lena stirs up these tornados and than just shrugs them off. It’s sort of devious and bizarre.
Why is him being “Republican” even significant? Well played Lena…well played.
I just find it repulsive that the publisher and Lena refused to help this guy or speak out until it got a lot of media attention….
Maybe Barry is the rapist.
It’s possible, I guess.
Could be. We’ll never know, I guess. The whole situation is so weird.
What!!! It’s possible.
He stated he never met her, not he knew her or had friends in common or dated her once.
Now that lawyers are involved , she admitted her Barry was made up , that oddly matched a real person’s identity who would have been at the same college the same time this happened, funny that… He will mostly likely sue her with lawyers her publishing house will pay for and swear under oath unless she settles out of court
But it’s impossible, how sad , hope you are never maligned and it was clear cut case and still people for their own biases doubt you committed a vile act.
The publisher has to shoulder a little of the blame for this particular clusterwhoops – they should have insisted on stating it was a pseudonym; otherwise, they’re right where they are, with allegations that cannot be proven, someone’s life in a tailspin because of these allegations, and staring down the barrel of a big, fat libel suit.
But isn’t there more to the story than this?
I have no stake in Dunham but from what I’ve read on other sites she implied this was the guy’s real name, refused to ‘clear’ his name for several months, and multiple characteristics of ‘Barry’ match an actual individual named Barry who was also a college republican and DJ?
The issue being the real-life Barry was never near her and neither the story of if it was a pseudonym and she meant someone else or if it was specifically him now adds up.
A little more than someone folks not being quick on the pick-up that she meant it as a pseudonym.
She just seems like a cluster fck of a human being.
This book was a major mistake in any way. she lost most of her support from the sane parts of the feminist movements after describing what she did to her sister and then even joked about it. now she used a pseudonym or didnt and let it linger very long for this guy. rapist is a serious accusation and if she went so specifically into it with a name (that might have been a pseudonym or not), his political party etc she should have checked it. i mean if regular people can find it via google she should be able too. And even if she didnt do this, why wait this long to apologize publicly?
Lena has always had the special snowflake syndrome and was mostly only liked in circles of rich white women, so i cant even blame her when people even encourage her behaviour and throw money at her. But why the heck wouldnt a publisher say something? Lena Dunhams book is so problematic someone should have tried to talk to her.
now they are paying off people and that could have been avoided by simply using John Doe or something.