two highly recommended warnings essays

As This Is My Life

So apparently, someone doing roadwork cut through our cable line, and we have a.) no cable, b.) no internet and c.) no phone. Which means tonight, may not be on if I can't get the tethering to work between John II and Arthur. However, Arthur the G1 and I are going to bond like whoa. Just. G3 is not very fast. So we'll see how that's going to work out.

ETA: Have internetz! They fixed it! Shocking.

Warnings

Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay by impertinence

Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.

In response to this essay, I've had a complete reversal on my general attitude of whatever on warnings. Sure, it should not take someone gutting themselves publicly for me to work out why this is so important, but there you go, that's what it actually took in this case. That is perhaps one of the hardest things I've read in the last year, bar none. Recommended reading no matter what side of the warning debate you are on and in my opinion required reading if you're going to debate this topic at all, ever, anywhere.

Also recommended:

Warnings by zvi_likes_tv at Dreamwidth, with an alternate perspective on the warning issue, along with very good conversations in comments (actually, both essays have both great and faintly terrifying commentary). I'm going to say whatever side you are on, this, too, should be read thoroughly before engaging.

ETA: reginagiraffe linked in comments to kalpurna's post on easy ways to do warnings. We shall all read and learn and do better.

For me, I think I'll just automatically add a line to all headers (and if I don't, someone for the love of God slap me for stupidity; I'm adding it to my autotext header in MSWord now) for Warning and either enter None or See Cut for a separate section before the story starts. I don't often have the more common trigger issues in my fic, but honestly, since I haven't thought about warnings, I very well may have and just haven't paid attention to it.

Comments

[cathalin.livejournal.com]

That was incredibly harrowing and powerful (essay 1). I'm still in tears. Thank you for linking to it. I'll try to read Zvi's later. I've always been of the "why not warn, and warn extensively" mindset -- it's just how I think naturally -- so it hasn't changed my thinking, but it has steeled my resolve to do it as well as possible every single time, and maybe speak out more about it if it's appropriate.

And I just want to say, I respect people so much who can change their minds in the face of evidence/good arguments/better explanations, and do so publicly. I think it's a fantastic example you're setting. People can get so locked in, and afraid to say, you know, I think I was looking at it wrong. Don't beat yourself up too much over the "shouldn't take someone gutting themselves" thing (though after reading that essay, I certainly can understand why you would feel that way, god -- I'm questioning the adequacy of the warnings I've done myself after that). I'm still learning stuff/having my perspective changed by people in this community all the time. I think it's a rare person who hasn't, sometime in their life, had the shame of only learning something when someone guts themselves over it -- I know I do. If you think of it by analogizing to RaceFail, the issue comes down to, do you listen, and then change your behavior. And you have and are.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

It's a personal failure. I never have gone the whee artist route, so there's always been a faint--heh, God, smugness that I never carried that kind of thinking around with me as a writer, but if anyone, anywhere, has to get to the point where she feels it necessary to write out her pain like this just for the sake of getting something so simple from us.... It's not just me (fandom, collective) not getting it; it's almost like being contrary possibly for no better reason than I didn't feel like thinking about it too hard.

*g* I mean, I am not a martyr to my own self-absorbent self here, but--I think in this case, after everything that's happened, that I hadn't extended it to paying attention to more aspects of fandom is a pretty good indicator I am not yet doing this right. In which case, yes, doing better is the most important thing and hopefully, please, encouraging more people to do the same.

[cathalin.livejournal.com]

I've actually encountered people (in a fandom far, far away, nothing you've ever been involved in) who I know with certainty *purposely* didn't warn for all kinds of things for the LOLz (so disgusting to me, I can't even. I rarely get angry, but I'm *still* mad at those people. It was compounded by the fact that it was in a fandom where people had very visceral and personal emotional reactions to the story/characters, and often had very harrowing stories of their own in relation to the themes in the fandom).

And there are plenty of people who do the "I am an artiste/my fic is so important and different that warnings would ruin its artistry" thing -- I've seen that as well of course. And it's easy to think that way if you don't think it through, I suppose -- and I have to believe that even those people don't intend to cause harm -- of course they don't, since most people do mean well, I have to believe that. Generally, it seems like those are mainly newer/younger writers? I hope? (I have to admit I've never completely understood this pov, because to me, it's not the *facts* of a story that make it good or not; it's what the writer does with them, but, whatever).

So on a continuum, your maybe just not wanting to take the time/think it through is relatively benign (and I understand this -- even now, I'm thinking back to myself, oh whoa, should I go back and add a warning for x in story Z, and what about issue Y, should I warn for it?).

However, I fully get that not *meaning* to cause harm isn't enough in these areas -- I haven't meant to cause harm by some of the clueless things I've done, but they are still wtf-inducing in retrospect. So, yeah, I think you're doing it right -- not a martyr to self-absorbent angst *g*, but letting yourself feel that poster's pain, and that of others in her position.