Lena Dunham's unretouched Vogue photos: Why did the magazine bother?

It must be weird to be Lena Dunham right now. A normal-looking girl whose body is causing a multitude of arguments, discussions and Twitter rants around the world. And not for the most flattering reasons.

Pop culture website Jezebel has even paid $10k to nab unretouched pictures of the writer/actress/nudist from the shoot in Vogue's latest US edition.

And now they've been posted online in all their glory, complete with a rundown of all the nips and tucks airbrush wizards have used to create the pictures we see in the glossy's pages. Well done, Jezebel, you've proven fashion magazines use photoshop. A good use of $10k there.

Dunham herself has made it very clear throughout her career that she doesn't care what people think of her and her body. She's become something of a body image crusader thanks to her regular bouts of nudity on her TV show Girls, which began its third season this week.

[Should airbrushing be banned?]
[Victoria's Secret model loses a limb to the airbrush]

And Dunham was applauded by many for knocking back criticism about the level of nudity in the new episodes, notably from TV critic Tim Molloy, to whom she patiently explained that her nakedness on the show was a 'a realistic expression of what it's like to be alive' and 'if you are not into me, that's your problem'.

So some are understandably disappointed that she's allowed Vogue to retouch her photos in the way they have - slimming a little here, shaving the jawline there.

But the question that's got us all talking in the office is 'why did it even bother?'. The retouching isn't actually huge, no more than the work we've seen revealed on more conventionally Vogue-esque models and celebrities in the past. And honestly, the photos looked absolutely fine before - albeit with the strange clown-themed cover image.

It seems that Vogue has missed the entire point of putting Dunham on the cover: That she's the it-girl of the moment without conforming to the usual prerequisites of a fashion mag coverstar. Any interesting move it appeared to have made or any suggestion that it's widening its attitudes towards how women do and should look dissolve when you realise that it's done its darndest to ensure Dunham looks as conformist as she possibly can with her non-size-0 body.

As for Jezebel, it can claim it's trying to prove something, but what's it trying to discredit exactly? Vogue? Or Dunham herself? As Roxane Gay, writing on Salon says, it's a blatant attempt to drive traffic to the site and proves nothing we didn't already know.

User @eiffeltyler on Twitter criticised the website, saying: ‘@lenadunham can't POSSIBLY look that good on her own you guys! $10k to the person that -- oh.  Oh so she looks p[retty] much the same? @Jezebel'.

While Lena's casual response on Twitter saying, '10k? Give it to charity then just order HBO' has, of course, been retweeted a gazillion times.

She's decided that the discussion isn't worth the energy to engage with, and perhaps she's got a point. But the only other question we're left asking is why, if she's so keen to reveal herself warts and all, did Lena not release the pictures herself?

Answers on a postcard please. Or if you're more technologically advanced, tell us what you think over on Twitter.