Lena Dunham is known for her candid, raw exposure of one flawed subject in particular: herself. That’s why the final product of this month’s retouched Vogue cover and Annie Leibovitz pictorial comes to such a shock to some of Dunham’s loyalist fans.

Dunham, however, doesn’t feel the same way.

According to Time Magazine, the writer and creator of HBO comedy “Girls” told Slate France, that the recent controversy over digitally altered images “confuses me a little.” Sound familiar?

Mindy Kaling also experienced a recent onslaught of unwanted media attention after her Elle cover was issued displaying her, as the only woman of color in a four-part female featured series, in black and white, and from the waste up, negating her comparatively full womanly figure.

This time, Dunham’s photos have been digitally retouched to alter her physical appearance in ways that make her seem more appealing in the conventional sense of physical beauty, something multi-million dollar beauty magazines specialize in. To most professionals, it comes as no surprise that a magazine of that caliber would retouch photos, especially on the cover.

With Lena Dunham, it’s a different story.

Her credo to women everywhere is: be yourself, flaws and all. So when a top-tier magazine Vogue takes pictures of her and then digitally edits them to make her appear more typically beautiful, her cause is denounced.

The website Jezebel whose tagline is: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women, Without Airbrushing had a field day with Dunham’s before and after photos, issuing GIFs of the pre/post pics and a detailed description of just what has been photographically altered in order for Dunham to be deemed “Vogue-worthy.” Jezebel issued a $10,000 bounty to whoever could produce the untouched photographs of Lena Dunham from the Leibovitz shoot. Within hours, the website received six allegedly unaltered images. The biggest changes occurred on her face, where a frown line was removed, her jawline was sharpened and her neck made to appear impeccably taut, thin, and long. It’s like a digital facelift!

Editor of Vogue Anna Wintour is notorious for her highly stylized leaning toward the traditionally high-end personification of glamour and beauty. Size 2 is acceptable and Size 0 ideal. According to The Guardian, studies have been shown that retouching in magazines has lowered women’s self-esteem and given them poor body images. Exactly the opposite of what Lena Dunham is trying to accomplish in her corporeal exhibition.

With Lena Dunham, an activist for social change on the female figure frontier, it’s a much more heated discussion, when she goes in for a little digital nip tuck.