Those defending Lena Dunham from allegations of abuse need to tread carefully. Women of colour are already feeling alienated from mainstream feminism and this has the potential to do a lot more damage, writes Ruby Hamad.

What to make of the sexual abuse allegations against Lena Dunham?

In a piece that purports to be a review of her book, Not That Kind Of Girl, but is little more than a diatribe against Dunham's "pathetic privilege", conservative writer Kevin D Williamson was the first to describe Dunham's recollections of her childhood relationship to younger sister Grace as sex abuse. Other right wing sites soon jumped on the story.

It's worth noting that privilege doesn't seem to bother conservatives when it comes to men, but Dunham has long been hated by the conservative side of US politics for her pro-choice position (she is a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, and Williamson has previously stated that women who have abortions should be hanged).

The allegations centre on three excerpts from Dunham's book. The first, when she was seven and Grace was one, occurred after her mother had been teaching her about the female anatomy:

One day, as I sat in our driveway in Long Island playing with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me. Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn't resist and when I saw what was inside I shrieked. My mother came running. "Mama, Mama! Grace has something in there!" My mother didn't bother asking why I had opened Grace's vagina. This was within the spectrum of things I did. She just got on her knees and looked for herself. It quickly became apparent that Grace had stuffed six or seven pebbles in there. My mother removed them patiently while Grace cackled, thrilled that her prank had been a success.

In other sections, Dunham recalls how, as a teenager she was desperate for Grace's affection, even bribing her sister for kisses on the lips ("Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a young girl, I was trying"), and sleeping in the same bed as her sister until the age of 17, sometimes slipping her hand into her own underwear "to figure some stuff out".

I have no doubt that Dunham thought readers would take her recollections in the spirit with which they are intended - as a light-hearted look back at her sometimes troubled childhood. Dunham freely admits she was "a weird kid" with boundary issues and this has been a point of contention with her sister.

Of course, this does not necessarily make her a sexual predator, as those defending her have pointed out, with many claiming it is normal childhood curiosity. For what it's worth, I don't think Lena Dunham sexually abused her sister. But, based on these passages, I can understand why some people do.

While Williamson and other conservatives are motivated primarily by hatred of liberalism, of which they regard Dunham a particularly vile specimen, what many of Dunham's main defenders, who are mostly white feminists, seem to be overlooking is that not all the outrage is coming from the right.

Feminists of colour are concerned that Dunham's privilege and her status as an icon of white feminism is excusing her for behaviour that would never be tolerated from a black woman. Dunham already has a reputation for making problematic comments about race, and this is only exacerbating the tensions.

It may well be that Dunham is an "easy target" for feminists of colour due to their ongoing issues with the lack of diversity in her show Girls. However, their concerns should not be dismissed out of hand.

The fears that black women would not have the freedom to be so blasé about arguably problematic sexual behaviour are rooted in the mythology of deviant black sexuality that go all the way back to slavery, when black women were blamed for their sexual abuse at the hands of their white owners.

This presumption of the lack of black female "innocence" was evident in the furore surrounding the casting of the role of beloved character Rue in the first Hunger Games instalment. Furious fans took to Twitter in outrage that the sweet young girl they imagined from the book was played by a black girl.

This is precisely what popular blogger Awesomely Luvvie is tapping into when she writes:

A Black woman could not have written what Lena did. She would not have the space to argue context. She would not have anyone championing her. She would certainly not be given some benefit of the doubt about childhood exploration because Black people's innocence is often denied, even when we're 7.

What began as an ideological smear campaign has become, as Daily Beast's Samantha Allen writes, yet another cause of division between white and non-white feminists:

(The) well-worn racial fault lines that have long characterized U.S. feminism are coming to the fore once again. While white feminists continue to defend Dunham, seemingly out of reflex at this point, non-white feminists are tired of Dunham getting a free pass for behaviour that people of colour would be excoriated over.

Dunham has built her brand on quirkiness, hipster irony, and an infamy for "oversharing." In fending off the allegations, she says she merely "told a story about being a weird 7-year-old".

But her stories have triggered actual survivors, (although her sister clearly does not regard herself as one). There are many sentences that never should have made it past an editor.

However ironically, Dunham herself invited comparisons to abuse by describing her actions as something a "predator might do". And the recollection of a seven-year-old Lena prising open her one-year-old sister's vagina veers dangerously close to the victim-blaming trope employed by actual abusers. When she says her sister "did not resist" she is ascribing an almost sexual agency to a toddler that they just don't have.

Her stylistic choices appear to make light of sexual abuse but this seems to be a conversation that white feminist defenders of Dunham are not interested in having.

We could use this an opportunity to discuss the boundaries we place on kids, what constitutes "normal" childhood curiosity and what behaviour crosses a line. We could examine our own attitudes to child abuse, and we could certainly use this to discuss the role of white and class privilege.

Instead, it's largely become yet another binary issue that has fallen into the predictable pattern of excoriation or exoneration, with little room for nuance. Her defenders say this is an attack on female sexuality while her detractors see a justification of molestation.

Based only on her excerpts, it is unfair to conclude that Lena Dunham abused her sister. Nonetheless, the cavalier language that Dunham employs is angering feminists of colour angry because they believe - with cause - that Dunham's white privilege means nothing she says or does will propel white feminists to criticise her.

Dunham's defenders need to tread carefully here. Women of colour are already feeling alienated from mainstream feminism and this has the potential to do a lot more damage.

Ruby Hamad is a Sydney-based writer and filmmaker. View her full profile here.