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Some random thoughts on this whole Warnings business, now that I've had some time to digest it all. Non-fannish friends that are confused by all this, I apologize in advance for the teel dears.
1) Being enlightened about one form of privilege does not necessarily mean one is aware of another form. More critically, empathy towards another disadvantaged group's plight is not automatically conferred along with one's minority status. I saw a disturbing strain pop up in the liberal blogosphere during the post-Prop H8 fall out, and I'm seeing it again now. No one has any obligation to "know better", behave or think in a certain way simply because they are _____. I'll go so far as to say that line of thinking smacks of bigotry, IMO. People are different, no one group is a monolith (and I'll touch on that again in a bit), and we all bring a variety of life experiences to the table which inform our views. Hell, I'm black AND a survivor, and I will freely admit to initially feeling a knee-jerk NO YOU DIDN'T when people started comparing this to Racefail. Internalized shame FTL.
2) Fandom does not necessarily have to be a "safe space" (as the recent kerfluffle on Shakesville has rather painfully pointed out, such a thing is pretty much impossible with large, Internet-based communities), but it should be welcoming to as many people as possible. This is where the anti-warning people just fucking fail. There are people who continually dismiss calls for civility and empathy in Fandom because they "didn't sign up for a commune" or some shit. You know what, I didn't either, and I don't like rules being imposed on me more than any other countercultural Gemini. But seriously people, Fandom as we know it is dominated almost entirely by cis women, with a very sizable contingent of transfolk and genderqueers. Given what we know about the prevalence of sexual assault and other forms of abuse to members of these communities, why would you NOT warn at the very least for the big, common issues that people have warned for since the dinosaur age of Fandom without even thinking of triggers but just squicks? I don't think a single survivor is trying to abdicate responsibility for their own mental health to a group of relative strangers on the internet (ye Gods I hope not), but I have to wonder about these people who refuse to even type a one line sentence stating "graphic sexual violence" or something in their summary. Is the "artistic integrity" of your pornographic fanfiction about fictional characters really more important than a very real rape survivor's pain? No, no one is obligated to feel guilty about someone's potential reaction to their fic, but come the fuck on, people. Are you really that goddamn selfish? Jesus flossing Christ. We cut/warn for NSFW but not for rape? Are you serious? I'm not saying you don't have a right to be a dick on your own journal, but, well, don't be surprised if people think you are dicks when you proclaim your dickitude in a public forum.
3) Not every survivor has the same experience or coping mechanisms, not all of us react to triggers in the same way, or are even triggered to begin with. We're all at different places on our journey. We need to respect where other people are coming from, and not be judgey or come from a place of condescension or condemnation. This is something I have to constantly check myself on. I myself was guilty of this when I first heard about this latest blowup. It's not anyone's place to tell anyone else they're being too sensitive or they're overreacting about something. That doesn't help anything at all, and it just reinforces the feelings of shame and self-loathing a lot of us go through.
4) People who make a good faith effort to do the right thing shouldn't be dogpiled. My Fuujin-esque CAPSLOCK OF RAGE is really directed at the people who are being obstinate dicks about warning for major, common trauma-inducing things, rather than the people who generally try to warn for triggery stuff but may not realize their fic has dubcon in it. Not everyone defines these experiences in the same way, and what may be obvious to one person may not be to another.
5) There is a special circle of Hell reserved for people who use terms like "Victim Olympics" and express doubt about survivor's experiences when they share them, and that survivors "ask for it" when we click on a fic without warnings assuming it's safe to read, that we should stay off the internet if we're so fragile, and all of the other sorts of heinous shit I've seen people saying in various posts. Please, please, step the fuck back from the keyboard and really look at what you're saying. Compare this to the rhetoric many survivors experience from society in general.
I'm probably stepping back from this wank after this, because the entire thing itself is triggering for me. I've seen what happened to Impertinence and I've seen the sociopaths out there in fandom and I have no desire to put my business out there like that in a public post. Call me a chickenshit, I wear the yellow tabard proudly. But suffice it to say that I never came forward to the authorities about the second time I was raped, and the first time the authorities did get involved because of the nature of what happened but I was so fucked in the head I couldn't even call it rape because of the way my abuser groomed me. The rhetoric flying around this discussion is really reminding me of why I still have trouble talking about what happened to me even now, almost fourteen years later, or even calling it rape. I'm reminded of everyone who ever told me I was just being a drama queen when I told my story, that the very real feelings of shame and disgust I felt were just in my head, and that the damage I've suffered ever since as a result is my own fault.
Most of all I'm just sad and disgusted and feeling like between this and Racefail, Fandom just doesn't want me in it.
1) Being enlightened about one form of privilege does not necessarily mean one is aware of another form. More critically, empathy towards another disadvantaged group's plight is not automatically conferred along with one's minority status. I saw a disturbing strain pop up in the liberal blogosphere during the post-Prop H8 fall out, and I'm seeing it again now. No one has any obligation to "know better", behave or think in a certain way simply because they are _____. I'll go so far as to say that line of thinking smacks of bigotry, IMO. People are different, no one group is a monolith (and I'll touch on that again in a bit), and we all bring a variety of life experiences to the table which inform our views. Hell, I'm black AND a survivor, and I will freely admit to initially feeling a knee-jerk NO YOU DIDN'T when people started comparing this to Racefail. Internalized shame FTL.
2) Fandom does not necessarily have to be a "safe space" (as the recent kerfluffle on Shakesville has rather painfully pointed out, such a thing is pretty much impossible with large, Internet-based communities), but it should be welcoming to as many people as possible. This is where the anti-warning people just fucking fail. There are people who continually dismiss calls for civility and empathy in Fandom because they "didn't sign up for a commune" or some shit. You know what, I didn't either, and I don't like rules being imposed on me more than any other countercultural Gemini. But seriously people, Fandom as we know it is dominated almost entirely by cis women, with a very sizable contingent of transfolk and genderqueers. Given what we know about the prevalence of sexual assault and other forms of abuse to members of these communities, why would you NOT warn at the very least for the big, common issues that people have warned for since the dinosaur age of Fandom without even thinking of triggers but just squicks? I don't think a single survivor is trying to abdicate responsibility for their own mental health to a group of relative strangers on the internet (ye Gods I hope not), but I have to wonder about these people who refuse to even type a one line sentence stating "graphic sexual violence" or something in their summary. Is the "artistic integrity" of your pornographic fanfiction about fictional characters really more important than a very real rape survivor's pain? No, no one is obligated to feel guilty about someone's potential reaction to their fic, but come the fuck on, people. Are you really that goddamn selfish? Jesus flossing Christ. We cut/warn for NSFW but not for rape? Are you serious? I'm not saying you don't have a right to be a dick on your own journal, but, well, don't be surprised if people think you are dicks when you proclaim your dickitude in a public forum.
3) Not every survivor has the same experience or coping mechanisms, not all of us react to triggers in the same way, or are even triggered to begin with. We're all at different places on our journey. We need to respect where other people are coming from, and not be judgey or come from a place of condescension or condemnation. This is something I have to constantly check myself on. I myself was guilty of this when I first heard about this latest blowup. It's not anyone's place to tell anyone else they're being too sensitive or they're overreacting about something. That doesn't help anything at all, and it just reinforces the feelings of shame and self-loathing a lot of us go through.
4) People who make a good faith effort to do the right thing shouldn't be dogpiled. My Fuujin-esque CAPSLOCK OF RAGE is really directed at the people who are being obstinate dicks about warning for major, common trauma-inducing things, rather than the people who generally try to warn for triggery stuff but may not realize their fic has dubcon in it. Not everyone defines these experiences in the same way, and what may be obvious to one person may not be to another.
5) There is a special circle of Hell reserved for people who use terms like "Victim Olympics" and express doubt about survivor's experiences when they share them, and that survivors "ask for it" when we click on a fic without warnings assuming it's safe to read, that we should stay off the internet if we're so fragile, and all of the other sorts of heinous shit I've seen people saying in various posts. Please, please, step the fuck back from the keyboard and really look at what you're saying. Compare this to the rhetoric many survivors experience from society in general.
I'm probably stepping back from this wank after this, because the entire thing itself is triggering for me. I've seen what happened to Impertinence and I've seen the sociopaths out there in fandom and I have no desire to put my business out there like that in a public post. Call me a chickenshit, I wear the yellow tabard proudly. But suffice it to say that I never came forward to the authorities about the second time I was raped, and the first time the authorities did get involved because of the nature of what happened but I was so fucked in the head I couldn't even call it rape because of the way my abuser groomed me. The rhetoric flying around this discussion is really reminding me of why I still have trouble talking about what happened to me even now, almost fourteen years later, or even calling it rape. I'm reminded of everyone who ever told me I was just being a drama queen when I told my story, that the very real feelings of shame and disgust I felt were just in my head, and that the damage I've suffered ever since as a result is my own fault.
Most of all I'm just sad and disgusted and feeling like between this and Racefail, Fandom just doesn't want me in it.
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