Warnings, triggers, privilege: a very small link round-up

[lizbee]

Fandom is once again having a discussion about warning for triggery material in fic. Rather than spelling it out myself, I shall link to the people who have actual intelligent things to say:

Sexual Assault, Triggering and Warnings: an essay. (This post contains material which survivors may find triggering. Also trolls in the comments, because people are made of fail. In fact, let's put a blanket warning on all of these links unless indicated.)

Again? We're having this debate again?

The Warnings Thing. (Nothing triggery in the post; I didn't check the comments.)

A Little Warning Would Be Nice. (Not triggery.)

Non-Fannish: On Upfront Warnings in Certain Kinds of Posts. (Not triggery.)

This discussion is, in my opinion, particularly relevant to DW fandom, where some writers have trouble distinguishing between courtship and sexual assault, and are very strongly opposed to using warnings. (You can see some of the relevant wank here, and if you go through cot_tossed, you'll see a bunch of cases where I and the others found ourselves reviewing unlabelled rapefic.) There is a reason why Teaspoon mods have discussed reserving the right to add non-con warnings to fics that need them. There was also a case on calufrax, last year, where someone recced a highly triggery Four/Romana fic as romance, then got shirty when I and others suggested adding a warning.

My point -- did I have a point? I'm sure I left it around here somewhere -- is that not everyone in fandom is in a position to consider sexual assault, dub-con or rape "hot". And some people will be seriously hurt if they encounter it. Don't be a douchebag.

ETA: There's a more extensive discussion in my LiveJournal, although people can comment anywhere they want. To put some of the comments in context, here is the related Unfunnybusiness wank. It is not strictly triggery, just rage-inspiring.

Comments

[trouble]

Frakly, I have viewed a lot of this as Yet Another Disability Fail on the part of Fandom (and the extended/related conversation going on in the Greater Feminist Blogosphere). Not that everyone who is raped/abused ends up having some form of PTSD/triggering-related issues, and not that everyone who has PTSD/triggering-related issues self-identifies as having a disability (nor do I think they should, if they don't), but a lot of people with mental illnesses like this do identify as having a disability, and FFS maybe some of us would like to be in Fandom too.

[lizbee]

Fandom tends to have pretty massive fail when it comes to mental illness in general. The DW anonmeme went through a lovely phase of recommending a couple of known depressives kill themselves. Of course, "if they really have a mental illness, of course we wouldn't say that".