Emotional Abuse Warnings on Fic
I've been reading a lot of fic on AO3 recently and at that site there's more non/dub-con warnings on fics than I've seen regularly used just about any where else. I think that's mostly a good thing. There are some drawbacks to extensive warnings, but the benefits almost always outweigh the negatives.
The extensive use of warning labels for sexual abuse has made me more aware of how often a warning label for emotional abuse is left off. It makes me wonder if the authors don't warn for emotional abuse because to them it's just not as important or traumatic as sexual abuse or if they just think that kind of behavior is acceptable and don't recognize it as abusive.
For example, I'm not going to name the specific fic because I'm not looking to pick a fight, but just a couple days ago I read a fic in which:
There were two characters in an established relationship. One said 'I love you' all the time. The other never said it, due to a superstition related to past emotional trauma. Instead of having a conversation about wanting to hear the words and why it's not being said, the one who said 'I love you' stopped saying it and emotionally withdrew until the one not saying it was completely miserable, guessed the problem, went to therapy, and groveled for forgiveness for not saying the L-word.
That is not a healthy relationship. It's emotional blackmail. If your boyfriend/girlfriend starts treating you like crap without telling you why, you don't figure out what their problem is and give them what they want. You dump them, or at least demand a sincere apology and a promise to never do it again. (And if they do pull the same punishing you for imagined failings crap again, you don't give them a third chance.)
This particular fic had a warning for dub-con for a scene where they had drunken sex. They were both similarly drunk, weren't doing anything they'd not done many times before completely sober, and both were enthusiastic about the sex while intoxicated. Personally, I thought calling that particular scene dub-con was a bit of a stretch, but I have no objection to an author trying to stay on the safe side by defaulting to a higher warning level whenever in doubt.
But it had absolutely no mention of emotional abuse/manipulation in the warnings. It's just weird if you think about it. The author goes out of their way to be sensitive to the feelings of their readers and warn for possible triggers, but doesn't see that hurting someone you supposedly love so you can get your way is wrong. Either that, or they knew what they had the character doing was wrong but think it's just hurt feelings and to their readers feelings don't matter by themselves without sex involved.
The extensive use of warning labels for sexual abuse has made me more aware of how often a warning label for emotional abuse is left off. It makes me wonder if the authors don't warn for emotional abuse because to them it's just not as important or traumatic as sexual abuse or if they just think that kind of behavior is acceptable and don't recognize it as abusive.
For example, I'm not going to name the specific fic because I'm not looking to pick a fight, but just a couple days ago I read a fic in which:
There were two characters in an established relationship. One said 'I love you' all the time. The other never said it, due to a superstition related to past emotional trauma. Instead of having a conversation about wanting to hear the words and why it's not being said, the one who said 'I love you' stopped saying it and emotionally withdrew until the one not saying it was completely miserable, guessed the problem, went to therapy, and groveled for forgiveness for not saying the L-word.
That is not a healthy relationship. It's emotional blackmail. If your boyfriend/girlfriend starts treating you like crap without telling you why, you don't figure out what their problem is and give them what they want. You dump them, or at least demand a sincere apology and a promise to never do it again. (And if they do pull the same punishing you for imagined failings crap again, you don't give them a third chance.)
This particular fic had a warning for dub-con for a scene where they had drunken sex. They were both similarly drunk, weren't doing anything they'd not done many times before completely sober, and both were enthusiastic about the sex while intoxicated. Personally, I thought calling that particular scene dub-con was a bit of a stretch, but I have no objection to an author trying to stay on the safe side by defaulting to a higher warning level whenever in doubt.
But it had absolutely no mention of emotional abuse/manipulation in the warnings. It's just weird if you think about it. The author goes out of their way to be sensitive to the feelings of their readers and warn for possible triggers, but doesn't see that hurting someone you supposedly love so you can get your way is wrong. Either that, or they knew what they had the character doing was wrong but think it's just hurt feelings and to their readers feelings don't matter by themselves without sex involved.