I’ve accepted the fact that people love to hate Lena Dunham (no relation). They hate her whether she shows her naked body and sexuality on her HBO show "Girls," gets accused of being racially inclined for dominantly featuring white characters on the show (which, I guess, was deserving of a little criticism), viewed as a so-called spoiled brat of privilege, and/or being forced to pay her opening acts on her book tour after a harsh media-fueled backlash. 

Now you can add a new "controversy" to this relentlessly ever-so-growing list: Dunham sexually abused her sister. Yes, rub those eyes and read again.

In his distasteful slam piece, "Pathetic Privilege," in the latest issue of the National Review, writer Kevin Williamson accuses the actress and writer of sexually abusing her little sister Grace when they were children. Dunham reveals in her memoir "Not That Kind of Girl" that when she was seven years old, she "leaned down between her (sister's) legs and carefully spread open her vagina." Dunham did this to see if their lady parts looked similar. What did Dunham discover out of this curiosity? Pebbles.

It’s a tale that’s undoubtedly weird, but chuckle-worthy and shouldn’t warrant such an outlandish, nonsensically harsh response.

Williamson didn’t take it so lightly. The so-called "abuse," according to Williamson, "is the sort of thing that gets children taken away from non-millionaire families without Andover pedigrees and Manhattanite social connections."

 But, come on, is she really? No. Not at all.

The evidence of this "abuse," he says, comes directly from the memoir and goes onto describe other passages from the book as "some very disturbing behavior that would be considered child abuse in many jurisdictions." He must love to hate Dunham by stating such ill-informed drivel by quoting sections of the memoir and not the entire story. 

Interestingly, this started as an attack from conservative media. It's probably no coincidence that Dunham would be called a child molester shortly after launching a Planned Parenthood fund. I mean, why else would a conservative writer take the time to read Dunham's book? I would only assume that it wasn't for a brisk pleasure read.

Of course, this has led to Dunham-haters to take the allegations seriously and twist them into more fuel to the rapid fire. To them, it’s just one more reason to vocalize their distaste. 

Dunham fired back at the National Review this past Saturday after the allegations seeped into the media sphere and thus began the "rage spiral." Dunham responded on Twitter, saying, "The right wing news story that I molested my little sister isn't just LOL- it's really f*cking upsetting and disgusting," "I told a story about being a weird 7-year-old. I bet you have some too, old men, that I'd rather not hear. And yes, this is a rage spiral," and finally, "Sometimes I get so mad I burn right up. Also I wish my sister wasn't laughing so hard."

In a statement to TIME yesterday, Dunham addressed the controversy in a second statement:  

"I am dismayed over the recent interpretation of events described in my book ‘Not That Kind of Girl,'" Dunham wrote. "First and foremost, I want to be very clear that I do not condone any kind of abuse under any circumstances.

"Childhood sexual abuse is a life-shattering event for so many, and I have been vocal about the rights of survivors. If the situations described in my book have been painful or triggering for people to read, I am sorry, as that was never my intention. I am also aware that the comic use of the term 'sexual predator' was insensitive, and I’m sorry for that as well."

"As for my sibling, Grace, she is my best friend, and anything I have written about her has been published with her approval."

We've gotten way past the point now where controversy is king in the media in terms of click-baiting, and for Williamson and National Review, their experiment in "Let's write and publish something so idiotic and misleading that'll cause controversy for controversy sake. Hooray, team," is their chance to get all of the clicks that they want (or probably need). Dunham is the subject of a lot of these sorts of blow pieces, ones that blow things way out of proportion. 

And, of course, when statements like this are pushed, retweeted, blogged, etc., it stirs the pot even more because so many people take what they read online at face value. I wouldn't doubt this will cause another backlash and perhaps might put a small dent in book sales (she has already cancelled two European stops on her book tour). Some will probably go as far as to stop watching "Girls" (if they haven't already) because of this accusation.

Call me old fashioned, but when I read an article that states, "Lena Dunham sexually abused her sister," I'd obviously have to do a little research rather than immediately believing it as if I was some sort of brainless troll. I mean, really, it seems as if the only people who are accepting Williamson's statement as fact are the ones who have already established their hatred towards Dunham for whatever reason.

As you'll read in the passage from the book and not just the quoted passages, Dunham clearly writes that she was curious if her sister's vagina looked like hers (children sure say the weirdest things, right?). When she asks her mother this question, her mother responds, "I guess so. Just smaller." So as Dunham sat in the driveway playing, her curiosity got the best of her. It's a story that's supposed to be weird, perhaps cause us to raise our eyebrows in a rush of short-lived shock, but not to assume that she set out to cause sexual harm. 

Williamson also added in his article that "there's no non-horrific interpretation of this episode." Of course there is. The only interpretation is a non-horrific one. I interpret this as a strange moment from her childhood, an act of normal childhood play stemmed from a bodily curiosity. Nothing else. 

In Jia Tolentino's Jezebel piece, she notes that Debby Herbenick, an associate professor at Indiana University, said genital exploration is common for a child and it has no sexual connotations. 

"Anyone who has worked in K or pre-K will tell you that you're often having to remind little children not to touch their genitals and to keep their hands to themselves, because genital exploration is very, very common among young children," Herbenick said in her response. "Ask any parent of young children and they will also have stories to tell.

"People who are attaching sex to these stories seem to equate the genitals with sex, but that's not how young children see their genitals. Dunham's story is not an uncommon one. The research (and any preschool or home with young children) is full of stories of childhood 'play' not so different than this one."

Was it Dunham's intention to assault her sister (who at the same time was discovering her genitalia herself by stuffing pebbles inside)? Of course not, and you'd be a fool to think otherwise. She was 7 years old, and it would be absurd to tie what she did with perverse sexuality. The whole passage was taken out of context, spun to place her back onto the burner of media scrutiny.

I'm sure we've all done some weird things when we were kids. We've all had odd little fixations and were curious about our own and others' bodily development. It's part of the human experience. Perhaps our fixations weren't always on our siblings' private parts, but that was her fixation in that moment in her driveway. 

After all, by definition, sexual abuse is a form of assault to stimulate the victim sexually, with examples of forcible rape, forcible sodomy and forcible fondling. There are way too many cases of actual child abuse out there. We should be angry about those. We shouldn't even wince at a story that's insanely interpreted as such. 

I'd be more concerned if Dunham had just done this last week. However, she did not. She did it when she was a kid – a curious 7-year-old – and sometimes kids do things that adults may comprehend much, much differently (it seems like even her parents didn't have a problem with this and no one else who has read the book). It's nothing that should elicit such a backlash. 

Say what you will about Dunham, her show or her book, but this is controversy that shouldn't even be controversy. It's not surprising that she isn't taking this lightly. She should be angry. She deserves to be.