(no subject)
Yet another post related to warning-gate, but not actually about warnings.
I get not having the mental/emotional energy to deal with any given social issue being talked about. I do. There's plenty of things where I sit on the sidelines and read, or just skip over entirely because I just have too much shit going on in my life and in my head to deal. It's just not fair or reasonable to expect everyone to have energy to deal with everything all the time. (In fact, it's quite ablist, from a certain point of view.)
That said:
While I understand the urge to say "oh my god, AGAIN?" when a new round of discussion starts up about issue 57C that most people in fandom have seen before - it's INCREDIBLY dismissive to follow that up with "we've already had this conversation, no one is going to say anything new, why don't you all just shut up?" - I think it's also kind of offensive to say that in light of the context of this particular thing, given how much our society pressures survivors of sexual trauma (and, in fact, many people with mental illness in general) to suck it up, shut up, and go away.
Because even when the subject is the same, the discussion is NOT. Fandom is not a fixed group of people. People come and go in fandom all the time, and with new people come new ideas, new experiences, new attitudes, new approaches to things. Every iteration of an argument within fandom serves to educate some percentage of people, exposes people to new ideas, or new perspectives on old ideas, etc. The central issue may not be resolved, but that does not mean that the process itself lacks value.
So, y'know. Don't participate. That's fine. (And I will yell at anyone who makes statements like "anyone not participating in this is -ist" because that statement is in itself ablist, because it assumes that everyone CAN participate and that's not a reasonable assumption.) But don't dismiss the entire thing as pointless or a waste of time, either.
(And if you need this to be more personal/specific - how do you think it makes people who've come forward, even anonymously, during this most recent discussion to talk about their own experiences with sexual trauma, or other trauma/ptsd issues in an effort to help educate, to be effectively told "your efforts in sharing that painful thing for you have no value whatsoever, because all I want to do is think about jared and jensen fucking like bunnies."? Really, people do not post about their experiences without it having some cost to them. Do not tell them there is no value to that by saying no one cares; they hear that enough everywhere else, they don't need to hear it in fandom, too.)
I get not having the mental/emotional energy to deal with any given social issue being talked about. I do. There's plenty of things where I sit on the sidelines and read, or just skip over entirely because I just have too much shit going on in my life and in my head to deal. It's just not fair or reasonable to expect everyone to have energy to deal with everything all the time. (In fact, it's quite ablist, from a certain point of view.)
That said:
While I understand the urge to say "oh my god, AGAIN?" when a new round of discussion starts up about issue 57C that most people in fandom have seen before - it's INCREDIBLY dismissive to follow that up with "we've already had this conversation, no one is going to say anything new, why don't you all just shut up?" - I think it's also kind of offensive to say that in light of the context of this particular thing, given how much our society pressures survivors of sexual trauma (and, in fact, many people with mental illness in general) to suck it up, shut up, and go away.
Because even when the subject is the same, the discussion is NOT. Fandom is not a fixed group of people. People come and go in fandom all the time, and with new people come new ideas, new experiences, new attitudes, new approaches to things. Every iteration of an argument within fandom serves to educate some percentage of people, exposes people to new ideas, or new perspectives on old ideas, etc. The central issue may not be resolved, but that does not mean that the process itself lacks value.
So, y'know. Don't participate. That's fine. (And I will yell at anyone who makes statements like "anyone not participating in this is -ist" because that statement is in itself ablist, because it assumes that everyone CAN participate and that's not a reasonable assumption.) But don't dismiss the entire thing as pointless or a waste of time, either.
(And if you need this to be more personal/specific - how do you think it makes people who've come forward, even anonymously, during this most recent discussion to talk about their own experiences with sexual trauma, or other trauma/ptsd issues in an effort to help educate, to be effectively told "your efforts in sharing that painful thing for you have no value whatsoever, because all I want to do is think about jared and jensen fucking like bunnies."? Really, people do not post about their experiences without it having some cost to them. Do not tell them there is no value to that by saying no one cares; they hear that enough everywhere else, they don't need to hear it in fandom, too.)