Thoughts on triggers and warnings

[sqbr]

Recently in fandom there's been a big argument about warnings on posts. The best summary, imo, is Warnings Wank In Bandom on Unfunny Business, but if you haven't encountered the idea of people being triggered by descriptions of sexual assault I recommend Triggers and Trauma and Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay(Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.).

This post is a collection of thoughts on the issue, not all restricted to fanfic.

I don't have any triggers myself. There are topics which tend to upset me, and certain kinds of fiction which make me feel bad, but that's not the same thing. What I do have is friends with triggers. I've read enough descriptions of what a trigger is like to NOT want to do that to anyone (especially not anyone I care about), and I've been very politely informed that I've inadvertently caused one enough (ie at least once) to be VERY careful, though still not always careful enough.

And for me this has nothing to do with "community norms". For example, I put this under a cut, not out of peer pressure, not because I thought anyone would yell at me, but because I didn't want to cause my friends or anyone else extra pain. (I didn't add "Warning: About triggers, may cause triggers" because I can't see that being helpful. I'm open to correction on this though) You can never totally avoid hurting some people sometimes, but we can all do our best and try and learn from our mistakes.

People talk about how movies and tv etc don't have warnings but, well..why shouldn't they? Maybe the fact they don't is a sign of the way that mainstream media is less responsive to the feelings of it's viewers than fanfic fandom. EDIT: Sorry, I expressed that badly. I agree that there are lots of things that act like warnings (reviews and trailers etc). But even if there wasn't that wouldn't necessarily make it ok for us not to warn anyway: "as good as mainstream culture" is a pretty crappy standard to hold yourself to when it comes to stuff like accessibility.

Also I've seen a few people imply that it's appropriative to talk about this in terms of privilege etc but I really don't think it is. As a disabled person, I see this as an accessibility problem, and people being privileged prats about it are being ableist(*). Not all the people it affects are actually disabled, but afaict(**) the relationship between triggering and related psychological problems like PTSD and suicidal depression etc is similar to the relationship between "having problems with stairs" and related physical problems like quadriplegia: on the whole the more hurdles and prejudice that person faces in everyday life the worse they will be affected by the accessibility problem, so contributing to that problem unnecessarily or refusing to acknowledge it is thoughtless and ableist.

I have seen some people saying "This is EXACTLY like racism/RaceFail" etc which is appropriative imo. There are some striking similarities in the way people defend their privilege, but some pretty important differences too. I guess the problem is that fandom doesn't have the language to deal with disability as it's own separate thing (Yet. I say optimistically. Though I imagine the only way we'll get there is via DisabilityFail :/)

I think the thing that annoys me the most from (EDIT: some of) the less Totally Failtastic commenters is that sometimes they make reasonable points but it's clear that even if they're willing to warn sometimes they still see the feelings of people who get triggered as important but secondary to their own convenience, and will for example make no particular effort to denounce the extreme anti-warning people while simultaneously complaining about being lumped in with them. EDIT: Not everyone who has criticisms of some of the ways warnings are currently implemented is doing this, and some of those criticisms are imo valid.

So I won't stand for that here: If you don't want people to assume that you're a prat who doesn't care about the feelings of people with triggers, make it clear that you do (and not by concern trolling).

EDIT: Reading some more I think that while I haven't seen anyone being pro-warnings with the same intense nastiness as some of the anti-warnings people, there is still some unfortunate over-generalising and not-listening. Right. More, on warnings. is the best post I've seen on this so far, though I think a small minority of people ARE being malicious. Also an important point I've seen made is that painting anyone who's not 100% unambiguously pro warnings as "anti survivors of sexual assault" is unfair to survivors who are NOT triggered and/or use BDSM etc as a way of working through their issues etc.

(*)Of course other disabled people (especially those with a more relevant disability) are welcome to disagree.
(**)And I don't know a lot about these sorts of psychological issues, so my apologies if I'm spouting crap. Also I realise a lot of people use "psychological problems" as code for "reasons I can dismiss you as irrational and inhuman" but that is the opposite of my intention. AND that I still don't have a major grip on what does and does not count as a disability (and I both wouldn't want to apply the term to someone who doesn't identify as disabled and wouldn't want to tell a disabled person that they "don't count")

Comments

[sqbr]

Most of the RaceFail references I've seen have been as you describe, and none of them were too bad, but here and there it felt like it was skirting a bit close to actually equating the two imbroglios rather than pointing out that they're very similar. I don't think it's a huge deal, but felt it was worth noting.

i have to disagree with that

We don't disagree so much as I expressed myself badly! I think it's important to note that there's ratings etc for most commercial fiction which act a lot like warnings (and I've edited my post to reflect that) but it's also important not to act like it's ok for us to do (or not do) something just because mainstream media does anyway. Basically: I think the "But books don't have warnings!" argument is irrelevant as well as incorrect :)

I did actually see someone complaining about the existence of genres and rating etc in mainstream fiction as being part of the same Poison To Artistic Expression as fanfic warnings, and perilously close to censorship. Though I'll admit, I may have missed the subtleties of their argument since didn't get very far into their post before back buttoning >:/

Also, totally off topic: are you the same tree as on JournalFen?

[tree]

aha! i see that sami already made that point for me.

i'm not! and i cannot express how odd it was to see me commenting when it wasn't, y'know, me. scary alternate universe type thing! i am tree here and on lj and at the archive and in OTW. i have been tree for so long that i think of myself as tree much more than i think of myself as realname. and now there is this other tree. i do not even know how to cope.

(apologies for making this entire comment about my angst!)

[sqbr]

There is afaict only one other sqbr in the world, a scandinavian scientific researcher with a name like Britt Sørensen.

But, as I discovered recently reading this latest round of meta and thinking "Wait, did I post on this already?", someone has taken advantage of my "Use any of the non-personalised icons with credit" policy with this icon. And now that someone's done it I find it actually does bother me :( *goes to edit policy* *ponders asking her if she'd be ok with me making her a slightly differently coloured version*

[aris_tgd]

Basically: I think the "But books don't have warnings!" argument is irrelevant as well as incorrect :)

I don't know, though. People have brought up Goodkind, and also Let The Right One In, which I just finished reading. I can't speak for the former, but if I'd just read the cover blurbs and the summary as provided to me in the bookstore when I purchased the latter object, I would think, "Hey, neat vampire book!" and not "OMG MOLESTATION," which is ACTUALLY IN THE BOOK and not "warned for" anywhere in the promo material.

In order to find out more information about these things, you have to go to other sources--like reviews, like book rating communities, like your friends ("hey, you've seen this movie, would I like it?" "well, it's kinda pedophiletastic." "oh, not my speed then.") Which is... just what the no-ratings people are suggesting can be employed if you are unsure about a particular fic which has no warnings on it.

Now, I'm of the opinion that there should be a way to warn for things that aren't necessarily going to show up in the summary, right there on the content. And this is made infinitely easier by us being on the internet and able to use hyperlinks and formatting. But I don't think the argument is "Books don't have warnings, so fic should never have warnings!" I think the argument is, "Books don't have warnings, and we have several ways of dealing with that. If a fic doesn't have warnings, perhaps there are some things we could do to deal with that, as well, which will help protect your health while we attempt to convince the entire internet that triggers are a real concern?"

I think also the argument "I prefer to read fic without warnings, so I would like there to be a way for me to customize my fic-reading experiences" is NOT "and do so at the expense of yours". I think there is too much of a lean on the "personal journal is personal" assumption--which doesn't clock out unless you are locking all your content, in which case go nuts--and I think it's wrong to have a no-warnings policy that you do not make explicit, ESPECIALLY if you have potentially triggering material in your fics.

... basically, I think the current system is broken, but I think that there are ways to fix the system which will needlessly make people unhappy. Which yeah, is better than hurting people, but there have got to be ways to address the real concerns that the no-warnings-for-me-thanks folks are bringing up while clearing away the bullshit concerns. "It's too haaaaaaaaard" is not a real argument, but "I don't want to give the impression that I warn for something that I don't, and accidentally hurt someone who clicks on my 'no warnings' story and finds animal harm" I think IS. I think there are ways of dealing with that, but "Oh just warn for the common triggers" is not the only thing that needs to happen for a solution.

[sqbr]

I guess overall what it boils down to for me is: people who get triggered are the only ones who can judge how triggers work and what is or is not a practical strategy for them to use to avoid triggers. Since a lot of them are also writers of stuff which triggers other people they can also judge what is practical for writers to do. So if they say warnings is the best solution for fanfic and that while it seems like mainstream media doesn't have warnings in effect it does(*), then even though I don't totally see how that works I have to take it as read.

Which isn't to say the warnings system couldn't use fixing/support from other measures. And there are people discussing this in a thoughtful "But what do people with triggers think?" sort of way, and they are not the ones I'm complaining about. *rereads paragraph* Yeah, I didn't make that clear: I think some critical-of-warnings-as-currently-implemented people are ok. I just get annoyed at those whose basic point is sound but who express themselves in really privileged hurtful ways. *edits*

To be honest I don't have any strong opinions on the nitty gritty of how warnings should be dealt with since I don't have triggers, don't write anything that needs warnings, and tend to avoid those stories where possible but am not Totally Messed Up if I read one.

(*)The fact it doesn't always work is I suppose equivalent to the fact that fanfic warnings don't always work either.

[aris_tgd]

I'm just annoyed at the moment about people on both sides of the issue mocking the arguments of the other side--I'm angry about people dismissing survivors' views and pain, of course, but I'm also annoyed that people are assuming things about the other side of the argument, since I think that's not productive. I do think that people on that side of the argument have been showing their privilege around, though, and that's not cool.

Part of this is that I have a really clear idea of what my own position on the matter is, and what I mean when I say "If you read a story that has no warnings and is not in a space that requires warnings, like a personal journal, and you have no idea what the author feels about warnings, you are indeed taking a risk." That's really meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. And there is a lot of fandom that requires warnings and I think this discussion has brought up why warnings are important and has educated more people about warning--me included. I just don't see how "It is ENTIRELY THEIR FAULT for not putting a warning on a story" is helpful when the reader did, in fact, read the story when it didn't have full header information on it. I don't ever want to discount the pain of finding something you thought was safe was in fact not, on top of actual triggering, but I would like to focus on concrete things that we as fandom and we as individual fans can do to stop people from getting hurt, instead of pretending that there is actually a fandomwide consensus on ANYTHING, including warnings, and calling out people who do not conform to this imaginary consensus.

There just is no fandomwide consensus, and I don't think the people who pointed this out as a possible tool to help people who have been triggered stop being triggered deserve some of the stuff that has been heaped on them. (Though I think there has been some victim-blaming going on in some of the comments, and some shaming, which is wrong.) Argh. I'm mad that this whole thing has gotten focused on people being awful to each other instead of on helping people.

Waugh. I'm going to go back to hiding out here in the real world.

[sqbr]

I do agree there's been too much overgeneralising. I think the people who are totally against warnings are being ableist and in some cases quite aggressively nasty, and unfortunately they started the fight off on a bad foot and keep popping up to keep the pro warnings people on the defensive.

After writing this post I've been thinking and reading some more and I am a bit concerned about how simplistically the argument is being portrayed, which glosses over the not-ableist misgivings some people have with the warnings system. Looking at metafandom there does also seem to be some more nuanced discussion going though.