sqbr | Further thoughts about warnings

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Further thoughts about warnings

This isn't a strong expression of opinions (for that see Thoughts on triggers and warnings), I started replying to someone's comment and realised I had so much context to fill in my actual reply was getting lost.

I think even more than is usually the case with this sort of polarised emotionally fraught argument, the "anti-warnings" "side" is made up of a very diverse group of people, going from people being total prats to those making reasonable points and not actually anti-warnings at all, just with specific misgivings about how warnings are implemented etc, and in the middle are bunch of people making a certain amount of sense but not expressing themselves very well and/or thoughtfully. I've included links because I think part of the problem here is that when people defend or attack a "side" they're not always clear which groups they're talking about.

Now one response to that is that these misgivings are still paltry or derailing compared to the importance of making fandom more accessible and less painful for people who are triggered by fic. I think this is true on some cases but not all.

One of the axioms of how I view the world is Listen to the people at the bottom of the pile. I wrote that before I became disabled and would probably do so differently now, but it still captures the basic principle of why I think people-who-are-triggered-by-fic should be the most important voice in deciding how best to prevent them being triggered.

But I think some of the pro-warnings meta is ignoring that axiom itself, by being unsympathetic to people who don't want to identify as having triggers, by conflating triggers/PTSD/being a survivor of sexual assault/etc and by THEN ignoring people who have misgivings about warnings which are the direct result of one of these things.

Also the idea of privilege (which is related to my axiom) breaks down a bit when judging the behaviours of individuals when you have something like sexual assault or being triggered which is both invisible and stigmatised so people may not wish to publicly declare it, and where the very fact of being in the less-privileged group interferes with your ability to speak up about it.

I still think these concepts are valid for making overall judgements, assuming that there's no overwhelming correlation within the group of people who have triggers etc between being willing to be open about having triggers and one's stance on warnings.

I do not have strong feelings about the specifics of how warnings should be formatted or set up, since it doesn't affect me much either way (all my fic so far is at AO3 and marked "None of these warnings apply") But what I mean by "being in favour of warnings" is roughly this:

You write a story. Any sort of story you like. Then, when going to post it, you think seriously about if it's likely to trigger people, and if so you add some sort of warning or notice:

If it unambiguously hits a commonly agreed on trigger like rape, and there's no harm apart from mild inconvenience in adding a specific warning, add one.
If you think it's likely to trigger people but you're not comfortable "warning" for, say, consensual BDSM, then if there's no other objection to being specific mention it via the summary, a "kinks" section etc.
If you think it's likely to trigger people but you don't want to give away the plot/nature etc of the story or otherwise don't want to add a warning, either be vague ("May trigger some people") or explicitly say you don't warn.
If you don't think it's likely to trigger people but aren't sure, say so.
If you're sure your story your story isn't going to trigger anyone with any of the main triggers you know of then say so. It's one more story for people with triggers to read!
Overall, be aware of the possibility of triggering and make a good faith effort to avoid blind-siding people, especially if someone contacts you to say a story of your triggered them. Maybe have a warnings policy somewhere obvious or linked to?

Right. More, on warnings and Why Everyone Was Right, But Also Wrong, Why That Is Okay, And What We're Going to Do About It are two more "pro-warnings" posts which try and include some of the criticisms of the not-actually-anti-warnings-but-have-some-misgivings people.

Note: I am not interested in criticisms of warnings which claim to be for the good of people with triggers but are from people without triggers and not backed up by links to anyone who actually has triggers agreeing with them. Some examples (which I'm open to counterexamples about):

"But what about the increased danger of fic which says it doesn't need a warning but does?" I'm assuming that if this was a significant problem, people with triggers would say so but I don't recall seeing any of them doing so. Obviously people will screw up sometimes, the point is to do our best and listen.

"But if everyone just says they choose not to warn what difference does it make?". See above, also I'm pretty sure that for a large proportion of stories which don't currently have warnings, if the author felt they had to say SOMETHING they'd say "No major warnings apply" etc, thus increasing the pool of fic that people with triggers can read (relatively) safely.

Also: I REALLY don't like this being framed in terms of the responsibilities of people with triggers. I'm not saying they don't have any, but many of them have explained why "Just avoid fic without warnings" is not a valid response, and the axiom comes in again. (I have come across some people who say they're ok just back-buttoning, but none for whom reading a triggering fic is Just Not Acceptable who are ok only reading stuff marked "No warnings apply" or otherwise vetted) Also it tends to get victim-blamey really fast.

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The acceleration towards victim-blaming is rather a problem.

I have nothing to add at this point, or any point for quite some time, but I will just mention this to YOU because we're actual friends, etc:

A certain person of our mutual acquaintance, at whose wedding I handed you a baby (which should, I think, identify her accurately for you, without identifying her to anyone else) had this to say when I told her that the warnings debate had engulfed fandom:

"... Is it called Rapefail?"

And then she added that she was a horrible person, even while I laughed and said no, because it wasn't, but were it not for the whole trigger factor, it totally SHOULD be, and seriously. I found that funny. :D

ONLY BECAUSE YOU MENTIONED "RACEFAIL" FIRST AND IT RHYMES!

You are both terrible, terrible people.

But I think some of the pro-warnings meta is ignoring that axiom itself, by being unsympathetic to people who don't want to identify as having triggers, by conflating triggers/PTSD/being a survivor of sexual assault/etc and by THEN ignoring people who have misgivings about warnings which are the direct result of one of these things.

I don't think anyone is unsympathetic*, it's just that you can't really do what they want and still be taking care of most people. If they don't mind being triggered/can back-button/are OK with enduring the consequences of being triggered for any reason, because they consider warnings superfluous/damaging, then that's cool for them, but the theme here is helping the people who want to protect themselves against triggers to do so.

The others will always have unlabelled fic to enjoy, if they so want to. This conversation may change various author's ways to do stuff, it may change the direction of fandom culture in lj/dw (I hope!), but there will always be parts of fandom where people don't warn, or careless authors, or authors too new to have lived this conversation who will not know the consequences and thus put their 'artistic integrity' first. That's the nature of the beast.

But perhaps I'm not really understanding what you mean in that paragraph. *says she after answering to it*

*Now you're sure to link me to someone who is. -_-

For the most part it's not that I think pro-warnings people need to change their stance. It's more being careful about how it's expressed: we shouldn't say (and I have no links, so may be misremembering) stuff like "Anyone who doesn't use warnings obviously has no concern for the feelings of victims of sexual assault" when many of the ambivalent-about-or-anti-warnings people are victims of sexual assault themselves and may even have triggers (and for that matter, not everyone with triggers has been sexually assaulted). I mean I think this is nowhere near as offensive as some of the crap the worst anti-warnings people said, but that doesn't make it ok.

And I've seen a lot of people who have no sympathy for the "Mention BDSM in the header but not in the same category as rape, because that sets off Issues I have around my sexuality" argument.

Thanks for linking telesilla's post. It's a good point that I wouldn't have seen otherwise, and helped put that particular bit in perspective for me.

I agree with pretty much everything you've said here.

-LJ furikku

I'm glad it was helpful. Comment you likely won't see: you should sign in with OpenId, that way you get comment notification :)

I'm in a weird situation with this round of the warnings debate, because before it started I was very clearly pro-warnings and really hadn't thought much about it before, I made that decision a long time ago and never felt any need to change it. But now having seen some of the anti-warnings reasoning being laid out there I am actually far more ambivalent about the whole business than I was.

Like all these issues it basically boils down to one set of people asking another to go to some trouble for their benefit. And the people being asked have to decide whether they are willing to pay the price involved or not. For 99%* of fanfic I would say that price was a reasonable price to pay, and let's face it, most people do pay it, but for the first time I am aware that there actually is a 1% where the price would be too high.

Which, yeah...

*All statistics made up on the spur of the moment for illustrative purposes only.

But I don't think this would be any kind of problem. I think it's quite okay if writers go away and think about warnings, and most then go on to put on at least basic warnings (non-con etc), and a few decide "no, warnings would harm this fic too much". The fact that they thought about it (in the context of the harm triggers can do) is enough, because I think enough fic will then be labelled, and the fic that shouldn't have warnings will become a category of its own, preferably I think with its own meta-label "Warnings would harm this", because it seems there's a specific group of readers who are actively looking for that kind of fic, and then they'd be able to find it.

Yes, I think that making a lot of people think about their warnings again is definitely a good side effect. My fic was already pretty comprehensively labelled, but just when looking for some illustrative examples for my own warnings post I found a couple of things that needed tweaking. Most older fans I know are rolling their eyes and going 'oh God, not the warnings debate again, why don't you just stop reading metafandom?' but I reckon I have got something from this round.

Or maybe like all unpleasant experiences one just forgets the full details too quickly to recall exactly what was said in earlier rounds. :D

My biggest remaining problem is my drabbles and short shorts that are rated all ages (PG13). The content warning should basically be 'nothing that could potentially upset anyone, hopefully, and nothing that will interest or attract anyone, because its only a drabble for Christ's sake there isn't room for anything much'. But, er, I'm still looking for a better wording.

Yes, that's how I see it too.

Well, except that all the fic I've posted was at AO3 (where you have to choose from a drop down menu) and doesn't need warnings anyway so I'd never had to think about it very hard to begin with.

leaving my 2c worth here, rather than at telesilla's page (which I found interesting), because it is less off-topic here than there...

I get peeved with people who aren't even-handed with their warnings. The big example of this is when there are both het and slash pairings featured, and the story warns for het. (there are also cases where the story warns only for the slash). I don't actually think that either of these need to be warned for, but I can see that the writers may wish to make it clear what is going on in the story.

And a second thought - as someone who has somewhat unusual triggers, one of which is a reasonably serious crime, I can see that by telesilla's argument, I could advocate to have that one warned for. But I don't think I actually care to do so. I pick the stuff I read carefully enough as it is (only read from recommendations/other people's fic searches; only read stuff for which a sufficiently detailed description/summary/comment is available), and most of the screening gets rid of the stuff that I don't read. For me that is a function of the way that I read though.

(not sure quite what point I'm trying to get across in that last sentence, but can't seem to clarify, so am going to post it and hope that someone else gets what I'm saying)

Oh yes, the different way het and slash are indicated in "warnings"/genres is creepy. Have you seen

queerlygen?

I think the existence of people who have triggers and don't require/want warnings for them does need to be noted, though obviously not the the extent (and you're not doing this) of saying that this is the ONLY way to react to triggers.

I was working on a longer, thinky reply to this, but I've kind of never got it out of my head and onto the pixels. Instead, I shall just nod in agreement with what you have said. (and go and stickybeak at the link that you gave me)

*nod*

It strikes me that the triggering/warnings debate is a typically internet-ish phenomenon caused by poorly understand venues of speech.

Courtesy in acts of speech is a contract negotiated by speaker and audience. In mass media (thinking film and TV) ratings, explicit content warnings, and the pre-viewing exchange of information about content are a well established norm.

In individual spoken conversation, the level of formality is well understood and is based on the situation and the degree of intimacy between the interlocutors.

The initial problem here, in my opinion, is that the internet doesn't give us all the information that we're accustomed to about the speaker, the audience and the situation each time someone types and someone else reads.

Warnings fix that, but warnings are sometimes taken to be an indicator of a lack of intimacy or community, or an intolerable administrative burden, an extra responsibility that shouldn't have to be incurred.

I personally think a blanket "no warnings" culture makes sense only in a community that has some other sort of gatekeeping facility to ensure that unpleasant and unwanted experiences aren't visited upon its members.

But on the other hand, I actively like to have broad freedom of expression. For example, quite apart from triggering, I enjoy several social spaces where people express preferences that society as a whole might find offensive. The enjoyment wouldn't be the same if I had to negotiate the content of every action I undertook within that space, so I prefer the top-level negotiation and understanding, the blanket contract of agreement.

In the case of online fandom, perhaps some of these communities weren't set up with explicit enough signposts from the outset, and now simply contain sub-communities with contradictory expectations that cannot be reconciled. The problem isn't that one way of talking is somehow intrinsically wrong, it's that people are doing a poor job of establishing, renegotiating and maintaining there expectations vis-a-vis communication, in a way that doesn't derail the central purpose of the community.

Within that process of negotiation, in my opinion, triggerees don't necessarily deserve special rights. Totally equal access to every community of interest* isn't really an achievable, or truly a desirable goal**, in my opinion - at some point the interest itself must begin to dominate proceedings otherwise the whole purpose of the community is unacceptably attenuated.

As a contrived example, I wouldn't argue that psychologists stop openly communicating about how to help people recover from the trauma of sexual abuse for fear of triggering the survivors of sexual abuse.

The recent quandary over "shock ads" about sex abuse in cinemas being a more problematic shade of the same thing, of course - a grey middle ground where extremely careful negotiation is required.

* NB I'd argue that almost all communities of interest can achieve almost total equality of access.

** NB I'd make a generic distinction between a "community of interest" and, say, an essential service.

s/there/there about halfway through

I agree that the problem is largely one of mutually incompatible expectations.

And I agree that the the needs of people with triggers should not be the only priority, that there are situations where they must come second to some other priority.

Totally equal access to every community of interest* isn't really an achievable, or truly a desirable goal**, in my opinion - at some point the interest itself must begin to dominate proceedings otherwise the whole purpose of the community is unacceptably attenuated.

I assume you'd agree that all things being equal it's important to try and avoid hurdles to accessibility, even to non-essential services. Food and shelter is all well and good but everyone needs fun, too.

And noone's asking for TOTAL access. It's an argument about the costs and benefits of a particular form of accessibility, and the general conclusion is that for 99% of fanfic writers the costs far outweigh the benefits(*). It is important not to forget about that 1% for whom it doesn't, but their existence doesn't invalidate the main point.

(*)Most fanfic has headers about genre/pairing etc anyway, so it's no major artistic shift or even extra typing to try and make those headers more useful to people with triggers. Especially since "Warning: I don't give warnings" is accepted as a bare minimum.

"I assume you'd agree that all things being equal it's important to try and avoid hurdles to accessibility, even to non-essential services. Food and shelter is all well and good but everyone needs fun, too."

I hope I covered the extent and reasoning of my qualifications to total access with "at some point the interest itself must begin to dominate proceedings otherwise the whole purpose of the community is unacceptably attenuated".

I don't think it's a given that access to non-essential* spheres of activity should supersede other legitimate concerns, including what the activity consists of and what social conventions govern it. Particularly when access can imply changing the activity itself and the attendant conventions.

I think communities are such that the preferences of individuals tend to end up in irreconcilable conflict from time to time. That problem, I'd suggest, should be "mostly" solved by a plurality of spaces for interaction access to which and expectations upon which are attentively mediated. Communities themselves should ideally accept the existence of this problem and provide sensible ways for people to migrate between several spaces according to their needs.

In the case of fanfic the need is to give people access to broad-ranging content and discussion without them having to encounter content with which they have a problem. Mandatory up-front warnings on a "per work" basis are only one possible solution ... one might as well demand per-paragraph warnings for the ultimate Verfremdungseffekt, if one's going to be so absolute about it.

* For me the whole idea of an "essential" service must also be left vague. I'm not keen on the notion of human rights either, or one size fits all solutions. My expectation is that human relations are complex enough that a truly fair system usually can't be administered without human discretion being allowed to govern the details, at least, of specific cases.

I agree with all of this on principle, I guess my point is that most people agree with this sort of thing on principle so I wasn't sure of the point of bringing it up, the question is not "Is there a point where accessibility trumps other concerns and vice versa?" but where to draw that line.

The beauty of the internet, I suppose, is that "space" is fluid - it's possibly to very finely tune the range of content you have to encounter with a modicum of effort (pruning reading lists etc.). Most content provides some fine-grained mode of subscription, and rating communities abound.

Of course, that creates silos.

Yes, you get this dynamic where people only ever interact with others with exactly the same set of preferences and lose the ability to relate to and with other people.

Yeah, but at least they can choose the people they interact with now!

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Further thoughts about warnings

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