A rare poast of srs bzns from me.
Oh lord I can't believe I'm posting this. Okay, so I thought I was done talking about this, but then I read lcsbanana's post here and hit the phrase "victim privilege" in her collection of quotes and holy shit, holy shit.
queenofhell has an excellent, excellent post here on how classic derailing techniques are being used to shut down this discussion ("it's your responsibility to educate me", "my friend is also a member of Group X and she wasn't offended, so you shouldn't be either", "you're the one with the privilege in this conversation because you're demanding special treatment"). Like I say, as soon as I hit the phrase "victim privilege" I was pretty much done for awhile, but I've been rambling in a Notepad file for awhile and I think I may have come up with something coherent at this point. So here goes.
i. Getting our terms straight.
zvi has indicated that she does not wish to take further part in the discussion, so I feel I should clarify that much of this was merely inspired by her posts; it is not a direct response to it in that I expect to engage her further, as she has said that she does not currently feel she can continue the discussion, and I don't wish to cause her any distress.
In this post on the subject -- where comments are turned off, hence why I make this post here instead of in her journal -- she said the following:The use of the word "privilege" with the categories "reader" and "writer" doesn't make sense. Privilege is talking about systemic advantages accorded to one group of people over another group of people, where membership in either group is either involuntary, a source of a stable sense of identity, e.g. race, religion, gender, health status, age, class.
I am gathering from this that there has been some confusion of terms and modifiers here. Namely, we have people arguing that the "privileged/not privileged" modifiers do not apply in this discussion, and most of these people, as I understand it -- correct me if I'm wrong -- are interpreting those terms as modifying the words "reader" or "writer". The people arguing that those modifiers do apply in this discussion are interpreting them as modifying the classifications of "person who is has triggers, possibly as a result of past abuse" or "person who does not have triggers".1
I am also trying very hard to believe that this is real confusion on terms that we (the two parties) have never bothered to agree on. I am trying very hard to believe that we have never agreed on these terms because we each simply thought it was clear what was going on, and I am trying very hard to believe that because the alternative is that, after extensive discussion has made it clear that a lot of us are using the word "privilege" in reference to people who do not have any sort of psychological illness that comes with triggers (which, again, may or may not be related to past trauma), not readers or writers of fanfiction, it begins to seem that the people continuing to insist that we're using it in reference to readers/writers are insisting on that by way of shutting down discussion. Or, as I said in a comment to Zvi's post here (in a screened comment, which I later deleted and apologized for, having posted before seeing this entry, where she requested that there be no further discussion),I think it has been made very clear at this point that a lot of people are using "privilege" to refer not primarily to readers or writers, but to people who are mentally ill with triggers (often -- but not always -- as a result of past trauma).
In continuing to maintain that people are only using "privilege" to refer to "readers or writers of fanfiction", it increasingly seems to me that you are deliberately choosing to ignore the fact that many people are not using it as a modifier for "readers or writers of fanfiction". Your continued insistence on explaining how we're all completely misguided for using "privilege" in this discussion when at this point it should be very obvious why we are using it (eg, not as a modifier for "readers or writers of fanfiction") is starting to read as an attempt to derail or completely shut down the conversation.
I'm going to stop trying to be polite here for a second and say that I am trying very hard to assume there's been an accidental confusion on terminology because the only other thing I can come up with is that people, several of whom I had previously respected greatly, are suggesting that the reason "privilege" isn't a term that belongs in this discussion is that status as someone who is mentally ill -- much less as a survivor of trauma -- is anything but involuntary.2 Given that I have seen the term "victim privilege" used, however, this illusion is not holding up very well.
ii. My history: let me show you it.
Throughout this discussion I have heard several people say that they've had to step away from the discussion because the discussion itself was proving triggery for them. I've been relatively stable lately, so thus far I have been lucky enough not to be triggered, but let me explain where they might be coming from on that.
Many years ago, I had a coach who raped me on several separate occasions. I was nine years old and I was convinced (both by being a fearful and somewhat neurotic child already and by things that my abuser said to me) that I would get into trouble if I said anything, because, for instance, my mother was unstable and I was not, at that point, mature enough to understand that while she had anger issues, her love for me and concern for my safety meant that this was one circumstance where if she did some screaming, it would not be at me. Since I was too terrified of saying anything, I went back every week for six months, and several of those weeks involved me being trapped in a bathroom with a rapist. That's as best as I can piece together, anyway, because my mind has pretty well blacked out just about everything to do with that period of my life, and I've been left to put together the little bits I've recalled in flashbacks. I've only started recalling things even in flashback form in the past few years; prior to that I would merely respond to any kind of sexual contact by breaking down sobbing, throwing up until I was reduced to dry heaving, spending hours in the shower scrubbing myself, or some combination of the above.
I have been told, in the past, that because I didn't say anything, then everything "after the first time" was my own fault. I have been told that maybe, deep down, I wanted it, and that's why I didn't say anything.
I am, as you can probably infer, of the crowd who is using "privileged/not privileged" to modify the classifiers "has triggers"/"does not have triggers", not "reader/author". In that sense, to me, the mere act of being able to walk away from the discussion is -- as it has been in previous discussions of privilege -- itself a sign of ability privilege. Here is why: you (which I use as a generic term), the person who does not have triggers, can walk away from it and move onto the next thing. Maybe I can walk away from this discussion, and maybe I can even do it without being triggered (which is more than several people have been able to do) and, hell, maybe I can even walk away from fandom. I cannot, however, walk away from the illness I have that carries with it triggers, an illness that results from my having been raped. I cannot walk away from the world, and the world says over and over that I need to "get over it"; the world refuses to define me as anything other than a victim; the world tells me that it was my fault that it happened, that maybe, deep down, I kind of wanted it, because after all, I kept letting myself be exposed to my abuser.
iii. On triggers and my own personal experience with triggering.
When and if I'm triggered is unpredictable, just as whether I might be raped from one week to the next was unpredictable. If I'm doing relatively well, emotionally, I generally don't trigger nearly as easily. And to return to the original topic of the discussion, to those who claim that "well, books/movies/etc don't come with warnings, why should fic?" uh, yes, yes profic does. It's called back copy, reviews, the Library of Congress cataloging system, the MPAA ratings system, word of mouth. In late February/early March, I posted that I was having trouble deciding whether or not to see Watchmen, because guess what, I knew already that there was an attempted rape scene in it, and that it was fairly violent. I knew this because I'd read the book -- and before reading, I'd read reviews and friends' posts that alerted me to the fact that there was an attempted rape scene in that -- and because I'd seen an interview with Jeffrey Dean Morgan wherein he discussed filming that scene.
(Further, as was pointed out in the comments to the
unfunnybusiness write-up, if the ~twist~ is the only thing your story has going for it, then writing: ur doin it rong. I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Season Four, before there were the FX reruns or DVDs, when only a few episodes were on VHS and I couldn't afford those. By the time I finally got to watch S2, I had been in the fandom long enough that I knew exactly what happened. It was still completely and totally wrenching for me. If your story can't stand on its own once I know about the warned-for content, then you don't have a good story to begin with.)
I'm going to borrow
zvi's food allergy analogy here. This was originally drafted as a response to Zvi's post, but she has started screening comments to that post, so I am posting it here instead, though as she has indicated that she has no further interest in continuing the discussion, I do not post it as a direct rebuttal or with the expectation of a response from her, particularly not if further engagement will cause her any kind of distress. When I was working at an educational company, teaching after-school groups, we were encouraged to have parties at the end of the terms: we'd bring snacks and candy and have fun with the kids. We were told to not bring anything uncovered, to bring a few different things for the kids to choose from, and to make sure we asked everyone if they were allergic (possibly -- it's been a few years, so I don't remember clearly -- there was even a form we had to send home at the beginning of the term so parents could say whether their kid was allergic to X, Y, or Z). We did all of this just in case there was that one rare child who was so severely allergic to nuts that a plain milk chocolate Hershey bar would send them into anaphylactic shock. We were trained up on how to use Epi-pens. We were told throughout that training, repeatedly, that "it's very rare you'll get a kid with this severe an allergy" and "they have enough experience that they know how to handle it themselves".
Let me repeat that: even though we were told repeatedly that the kids knew how to deal with their own allergies and that it was very rare for their allergies to be that severe, I was still expected to take steps not to trigger an allergic reaction and to know what to do if one was triggered anyway. In short, it was, in fact, my responsibility.
Granted, the kids I was working with were aged much younger than fandom, so the dynamic was different. But even today, when I have other adults over to visit, I've gotten into the habit of asking them if they're allergic to dogs or cats, because we've got one of each in the household. I assume that people with severe allergies will think to ask beforehand, but sometimes you forget, so I consider it part of my responsibility as a friend/host to try and remember to check. Indeed, I began doing this after I didn't think to ask if a friend had allergies, and he didn't think to ask if I had pets, and he walked into my house and had a moderate -- though not life-threatening, thank goodness -- allergic reaction to my cat. And if I forget, and they forget, and then they turn out to be allergic, no, I don't think it's because I was being a terrible person or because they were being irresponsible -- I think it's because we both made an honest mistake, so I apologize to them for the inconvenience and I try to be more conscientious about warning people in the future.
In conclusion: yes, I think that the term "privilege" applies here, not to authors or readers but to people who have or haven't experienced any kind of mental illness with triggers (regardless of whether said illness springs from any kind of past trauma).3 Yes, I also believe that being able to say your ~art~ is more important than another person's psychological illness is a sign of privilege. And finally, yes, I believe that we have a responsibility to warn which springs from our responsibility to be polite -- even decent or compassionate -- human beings, and I believe that the majority of arguments used against warning are coming across as classic derailment tactics, ones that come from a place of privilege: that of psychological health vs. psychological illness. I refer again to queenofhell's excellent post.
1. I use those last, rather unwieldy epithets after seeing posts like this one, which argued that not all abuse survivors have triggers as a result, and from the fact -- which I feel it's at least as important to mention -- that plenty of people with triggers simply have them as a result of illness, not because of any past trauma.
2. I'm not here differentiating among people who are mentally ill but seeing specialists, mentally ill but on medications, mentally ill but seeking other forms of treatment, who were dealing with mental illness in the past, or who are mentally ill but not pursuing any treatment at all (I am the latter, because I am not currently earning enough to afford insurance, and treatment is too expensive without insurance). I am referring only to people who are or were in the past dealing with mental illness, particularly accompanied by triggers.
3. I especially believe this in the case of rape/abuse, because I believe that abuse stems from certain systemic structures that make people who have been raped part of a non-privileged class, but this post is tl;dr enough already that I will not go into that.
queenofhell has an excellent, excellent post here on how classic derailing techniques are being used to shut down this discussion ("it's your responsibility to educate me", "my friend is also a member of Group X and she wasn't offended, so you shouldn't be either", "you're the one with the privilege in this conversation because you're demanding special treatment"). Like I say, as soon as I hit the phrase "victim privilege" I was pretty much done for awhile, but I've been rambling in a Notepad file for awhile and I think I may have come up with something coherent at this point. So here goes.
i. Getting our terms straight.
zvi has indicated that she does not wish to take further part in the discussion, so I feel I should clarify that much of this was merely inspired by her posts; it is not a direct response to it in that I expect to engage her further, as she has said that she does not currently feel she can continue the discussion, and I don't wish to cause her any distress.
In this post on the subject -- where comments are turned off, hence why I make this post here instead of in her journal -- she said the following:The use of the word "privilege" with the categories "reader" and "writer" doesn't make sense. Privilege is talking about systemic advantages accorded to one group of people over another group of people, where membership in either group is either involuntary, a source of a stable sense of identity, e.g. race, religion, gender, health status, age, class.
I am gathering from this that there has been some confusion of terms and modifiers here. Namely, we have people arguing that the "privileged/not privileged" modifiers do not apply in this discussion, and most of these people, as I understand it -- correct me if I'm wrong -- are interpreting those terms as modifying the words "reader" or "writer". The people arguing that those modifiers do apply in this discussion are interpreting them as modifying the classifications of "person who is has triggers, possibly as a result of past abuse" or "person who does not have triggers".1
I am also trying very hard to believe that this is real confusion on terms that we (the two parties) have never bothered to agree on. I am trying very hard to believe that we have never agreed on these terms because we each simply thought it was clear what was going on, and I am trying very hard to believe that because the alternative is that, after extensive discussion has made it clear that a lot of us are using the word "privilege" in reference to people who do not have any sort of psychological illness that comes with triggers (which, again, may or may not be related to past trauma), not readers or writers of fanfiction, it begins to seem that the people continuing to insist that we're using it in reference to readers/writers are insisting on that by way of shutting down discussion. Or, as I said in a comment to Zvi's post here (in a screened comment, which I later deleted and apologized for, having posted before seeing this entry, where she requested that there be no further discussion),I think it has been made very clear at this point that a lot of people are using "privilege" to refer not primarily to readers or writers, but to people who are mentally ill with triggers (often -- but not always -- as a result of past trauma).
In continuing to maintain that people are only using "privilege" to refer to "readers or writers of fanfiction", it increasingly seems to me that you are deliberately choosing to ignore the fact that many people are not using it as a modifier for "readers or writers of fanfiction". Your continued insistence on explaining how we're all completely misguided for using "privilege" in this discussion when at this point it should be very obvious why we are using it (eg, not as a modifier for "readers or writers of fanfiction") is starting to read as an attempt to derail or completely shut down the conversation.
I'm going to stop trying to be polite here for a second and say that I am trying very hard to assume there's been an accidental confusion on terminology because the only other thing I can come up with is that people, several of whom I had previously respected greatly, are suggesting that the reason "privilege" isn't a term that belongs in this discussion is that status as someone who is mentally ill -- much less as a survivor of trauma -- is anything but involuntary.2 Given that I have seen the term "victim privilege" used, however, this illusion is not holding up very well.
ii. My history: let me show you it.
Throughout this discussion I have heard several people say that they've had to step away from the discussion because the discussion itself was proving triggery for them. I've been relatively stable lately, so thus far I have been lucky enough not to be triggered, but let me explain where they might be coming from on that.
Many years ago, I had a coach who raped me on several separate occasions. I was nine years old and I was convinced (both by being a fearful and somewhat neurotic child already and by things that my abuser said to me) that I would get into trouble if I said anything, because, for instance, my mother was unstable and I was not, at that point, mature enough to understand that while she had anger issues, her love for me and concern for my safety meant that this was one circumstance where if she did some screaming, it would not be at me. Since I was too terrified of saying anything, I went back every week for six months, and several of those weeks involved me being trapped in a bathroom with a rapist. That's as best as I can piece together, anyway, because my mind has pretty well blacked out just about everything to do with that period of my life, and I've been left to put together the little bits I've recalled in flashbacks. I've only started recalling things even in flashback form in the past few years; prior to that I would merely respond to any kind of sexual contact by breaking down sobbing, throwing up until I was reduced to dry heaving, spending hours in the shower scrubbing myself, or some combination of the above.
I have been told, in the past, that because I didn't say anything, then everything "after the first time" was my own fault. I have been told that maybe, deep down, I wanted it, and that's why I didn't say anything.
I am, as you can probably infer, of the crowd who is using "privileged/not privileged" to modify the classifiers "has triggers"/"does not have triggers", not "reader/author". In that sense, to me, the mere act of being able to walk away from the discussion is -- as it has been in previous discussions of privilege -- itself a sign of ability privilege. Here is why: you (which I use as a generic term), the person who does not have triggers, can walk away from it and move onto the next thing. Maybe I can walk away from this discussion, and maybe I can even do it without being triggered (which is more than several people have been able to do) and, hell, maybe I can even walk away from fandom. I cannot, however, walk away from the illness I have that carries with it triggers, an illness that results from my having been raped. I cannot walk away from the world, and the world says over and over that I need to "get over it"; the world refuses to define me as anything other than a victim; the world tells me that it was my fault that it happened, that maybe, deep down, I kind of wanted it, because after all, I kept letting myself be exposed to my abuser.
iii. On triggers and my own personal experience with triggering.
When and if I'm triggered is unpredictable, just as whether I might be raped from one week to the next was unpredictable. If I'm doing relatively well, emotionally, I generally don't trigger nearly as easily. And to return to the original topic of the discussion, to those who claim that "well, books/movies/etc don't come with warnings, why should fic?" uh, yes, yes profic does. It's called back copy, reviews, the Library of Congress cataloging system, the MPAA ratings system, word of mouth. In late February/early March, I posted that I was having trouble deciding whether or not to see Watchmen, because guess what, I knew already that there was an attempted rape scene in it, and that it was fairly violent. I knew this because I'd read the book -- and before reading, I'd read reviews and friends' posts that alerted me to the fact that there was an attempted rape scene in that -- and because I'd seen an interview with Jeffrey Dean Morgan wherein he discussed filming that scene.
(Further, as was pointed out in the comments to the
unfunnybusiness write-up, if the ~twist~ is the only thing your story has going for it, then writing: ur doin it rong. I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Season Four, before there were the FX reruns or DVDs, when only a few episodes were on VHS and I couldn't afford those. By the time I finally got to watch S2, I had been in the fandom long enough that I knew exactly what happened. It was still completely and totally wrenching for me. If your story can't stand on its own once I know about the warned-for content, then you don't have a good story to begin with.)
I'm going to borrow
zvi's food allergy analogy here. This was originally drafted as a response to Zvi's post, but she has started screening comments to that post, so I am posting it here instead, though as she has indicated that she has no further interest in continuing the discussion, I do not post it as a direct rebuttal or with the expectation of a response from her, particularly not if further engagement will cause her any kind of distress. When I was working at an educational company, teaching after-school groups, we were encouraged to have parties at the end of the terms: we'd bring snacks and candy and have fun with the kids. We were told to not bring anything uncovered, to bring a few different things for the kids to choose from, and to make sure we asked everyone if they were allergic (possibly -- it's been a few years, so I don't remember clearly -- there was even a form we had to send home at the beginning of the term so parents could say whether their kid was allergic to X, Y, or Z). We did all of this just in case there was that one rare child who was so severely allergic to nuts that a plain milk chocolate Hershey bar would send them into anaphylactic shock. We were trained up on how to use Epi-pens. We were told throughout that training, repeatedly, that "it's very rare you'll get a kid with this severe an allergy" and "they have enough experience that they know how to handle it themselves".
Let me repeat that: even though we were told repeatedly that the kids knew how to deal with their own allergies and that it was very rare for their allergies to be that severe, I was still expected to take steps not to trigger an allergic reaction and to know what to do if one was triggered anyway. In short, it was, in fact, my responsibility.
Granted, the kids I was working with were aged much younger than fandom, so the dynamic was different. But even today, when I have other adults over to visit, I've gotten into the habit of asking them if they're allergic to dogs or cats, because we've got one of each in the household. I assume that people with severe allergies will think to ask beforehand, but sometimes you forget, so I consider it part of my responsibility as a friend/host to try and remember to check. Indeed, I began doing this after I didn't think to ask if a friend had allergies, and he didn't think to ask if I had pets, and he walked into my house and had a moderate -- though not life-threatening, thank goodness -- allergic reaction to my cat. And if I forget, and they forget, and then they turn out to be allergic, no, I don't think it's because I was being a terrible person or because they were being irresponsible -- I think it's because we both made an honest mistake, so I apologize to them for the inconvenience and I try to be more conscientious about warning people in the future.
In conclusion: yes, I think that the term "privilege" applies here, not to authors or readers but to people who have or haven't experienced any kind of mental illness with triggers (regardless of whether said illness springs from any kind of past trauma).3 Yes, I also believe that being able to say your ~art~ is more important than another person's psychological illness is a sign of privilege. And finally, yes, I believe that we have a responsibility to warn which springs from our responsibility to be polite -- even decent or compassionate -- human beings, and I believe that the majority of arguments used against warning are coming across as classic derailment tactics, ones that come from a place of privilege: that of psychological health vs. psychological illness. I refer again to queenofhell's excellent post.
1. I use those last, rather unwieldy epithets after seeing posts like this one, which argued that not all abuse survivors have triggers as a result, and from the fact -- which I feel it's at least as important to mention -- that plenty of people with triggers simply have them as a result of illness, not because of any past trauma.
2. I'm not here differentiating among people who are mentally ill but seeing specialists, mentally ill but on medications, mentally ill but seeking other forms of treatment, who were dealing with mental illness in the past, or who are mentally ill but not pursuing any treatment at all (I am the latter, because I am not currently earning enough to afford insurance, and treatment is too expensive without insurance). I am referring only to people who are or were in the past dealing with mental illness, particularly accompanied by triggers.
3. I especially believe this in the case of rape/abuse, because I believe that abuse stems from certain systemic structures that make people who have been raped part of a non-privileged class, but this post is tl;dr enough already that I will not go into that.