My two cents on the warnings debate, and personal policy
I'm the first to admit that I'm not very plugged in to the discussions side of fandom. I'm a lurker by nature and always have been - I came for the fic, and stayed. So when big wanks blow up, I'm usually the last to know, and have to dig around to find out what's been going on.
I like to understand what people are arguing about, and to hear both sides, then make up my own mind about where I fall and what I want to do about it. I did this with the whole Racefail '09 fiasco - read what people said, considered it, and decided to integrate it into my own personal behaviour so that I could be a better person. Not that I'm saying I was particularly racist before - but I grew up in an almost exclusively white area, am middle class and white, and have very little experience of non-white issues. I try to be fair to everyone and treat everyone the same. I want to be the kind of person who does good things for everyone around her, not bad things - I want to leave the world better off when I die, not screw it up more. This includes upsetting people.
So why, when it upsets abuse victims and can trigger horrible mental backlashes, do people talk about warning for triggery topics in fic as though it's a terrible imposition? I'm sorry, I just don't get it. It reads to me as though you're telling the abuse victims it's their own fault, so they should STFU and get out of fandom if they're going to be so whiny about it.
Um, no. That's not how MY fandom works. In fact, that's not how MY LIFE works. I would have thought it wouldn't be the way you wanted your life to work, either.
So. Here is my personal policy on warnings. I'm only just creeping back into writing fanfic again after several years, and who knows - I may end up backing off again into the dark and re-lurking. But I'm not willing to not touch on this issue.
I will always warn for rape/non-con, dubcon, child OR ADULT abuse (sexual/emotional/physical), character death or kinks that may be triggery such as BDSM.
To the best of my ability, the fics I link to on my delicious, which I consider to be a recs page, will always carry warning tags for these issues. If I slip up and forget one, I apologise, and a request for me to tag a fic correctly will always be listened to.
If, like me, you had no background information to this at all, I started here, at queenofhell's journal, and branched out. This post by impertinence is a candid and straightforward explanation of what triggers are and how they work. Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.
I like to understand what people are arguing about, and to hear both sides, then make up my own mind about where I fall and what I want to do about it. I did this with the whole Racefail '09 fiasco - read what people said, considered it, and decided to integrate it into my own personal behaviour so that I could be a better person. Not that I'm saying I was particularly racist before - but I grew up in an almost exclusively white area, am middle class and white, and have very little experience of non-white issues. I try to be fair to everyone and treat everyone the same. I want to be the kind of person who does good things for everyone around her, not bad things - I want to leave the world better off when I die, not screw it up more. This includes upsetting people.
So why, when it upsets abuse victims and can trigger horrible mental backlashes, do people talk about warning for triggery topics in fic as though it's a terrible imposition? I'm sorry, I just don't get it. It reads to me as though you're telling the abuse victims it's their own fault, so they should STFU and get out of fandom if they're going to be so whiny about it.
Um, no. That's not how MY fandom works. In fact, that's not how MY LIFE works. I would have thought it wouldn't be the way you wanted your life to work, either.
So. Here is my personal policy on warnings. I'm only just creeping back into writing fanfic again after several years, and who knows - I may end up backing off again into the dark and re-lurking. But I'm not willing to not touch on this issue.
I will always warn for rape/non-con, dubcon, child OR ADULT abuse (sexual/emotional/physical), character death or kinks that may be triggery such as BDSM.
To the best of my ability, the fics I link to on my delicious, which I consider to be a recs page, will always carry warning tags for these issues. If I slip up and forget one, I apologise, and a request for me to tag a fic correctly will always be listened to.
If, like me, you had no background information to this at all, I started here, at queenofhell's journal, and branched out. This post by impertinence is a candid and straightforward explanation of what triggers are and how they work. Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.