During the last warnings debate, Telesilla on DW, brought up some good points about how warnings for orientation or lifestyle choices were exclusionary - specifically people that did real life d/S and BDSM. (This post contains some discussion about triggery warnings.) Telesilla suggested that kinks, d/S etc... could be listed in other parts of the header and that putting them in the warnings was marginalizing. I think it was a good post because it talked about the idea that headers could inform readers without making judgments on groups of people.

Thanks for those links! I remember her discussion on them and why in the context of a warning they were marginalizing and insulting. Someone was talking about that particular line earlier and I was thinking about it in terms of warnings this time around too; while the orientation and lifestyle shouldn't ever be considered a "warning", if specific acts within that lifestyle might be warned for (I was thinking of explicit hard scenes or knifeplay/bloodplay/consensual non-con or rape fantasy, etc) since those can be triggering to someone who had them perpetuated in a non-con setting, whereas just wanting powerplay or light spanking would be less likely to do so (and just having a header advertising line, not a warning, with that in it would separate anyone triggered by those from those for whom specific play issues would be a problem).

...I'm actually not sure, to be honest. Kinks I really am worried about if there isn't at least a working standard, because if anything is going to flashpoint warnings grey area, it's going to be kinks, and that's not only damaging to those who practice them, it's working entirely against our entire fannish culture of not judging them. That's not a step backward I think we should be willing to take.