Warning: Labels
Jun. 25th, 2011 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mark_asphodelMay I say that I truly do not like the entire business of warning labels and trigger labels on fanfiction?
I get a basic rating system. SFW/NSFW, not-pr0n vs pr0n, extreme graphic violence and various forms of torture. That's a basic CYA mechanism for the community, too-- hide the pr0Nz from the thirteen-year-old readers. Not that most of that really works, but we all play along.
Trigger warnings? I'm sorry. I really do not agree with this one. I cannot and will not anticipate every single thing that could potentially set a reader off, and honestly that's not my problem. Last I checked, actual books didn't carry ratings for that kind of thing. Or magazines. Or comic strips. Movies and video games aren't rated to that level of detail.
"Warning: contains homosexual content-- like, a passing reference to a gay couple."
"Warning: contains parents belittling their children." (This is a trigger for a lot of people, including ME. And to a lot of people, it's comedy gold.)
"Warning: contains a joke about someone jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge."
"Warning: features a human sucking face with a chick with cat ears."
A guy sexually abusing a cat? Look, that already falls under NSFW and other really basic categories. If the penis is out and erect then we are, in the words of a 1970s film producer for United Artists, "In the land of X."
And warning for pairings, especially canon pairings, is something that is, to me, deeply childish and stupid. If your delicate sensibilities must be protected from any and all traces of a pairing you don't like, or one that breaks up your OTP: grow up. A background reference to something you don't like won't hurt the characters and it doesn't hurt you. I've read many, many stories with a background pairing that irked me, one where I felt a writer was pushing their personal agenda in an unrelated story, and my irked feelings still don't deserve to be cosseted by those authors. That's MY problem, not their problem.
Triggers are often subtle. Triggers are entirely subjective. The concept of what is and is not an unacceptable trigger evolves over time. It's all very Justice Potter Stewart: I can't define what crosses the line for me, but I sure know it when I see it. And you know it when you see it. And guess what? We may be 180 degrees apart on what "it" even is.
I mean, seriously-- Tom Sawyer would have to contain a warning for "suicidal ideation" under fandom standards. Among other things. Last I checked, that was still on kiddie-lit reading lists. And don't even get me started on all the people who read Flowers in the Attic as a coming-of-age rite. Or read Anne Rice novels that were basically Homoeroticism 101 disguised as explorations of immortality and the nature of evil. Books on shelves, or on E-readers, do not coddle the reader. Why is amateur online fiction expected to?
I do get warnings for kinks and squicks on the pr0n sites, because if the main point of reading is sexual gratification, then I'd rather not be jerked out of a story because someone's engaging in bloodplay or peeing on their partner. That actually makes total sense to me, even if I am irked by having to break out labels that turn what I'd consider story development into a laundry list of kinks and squicks bereft of context. It's one reason I don't post more on EFFN (sorry, Samu); appending sixteen different warning labels and categories pretty much ruins the surprise factor-- especially as there is something of a difference between a "first time" story someone is reading to satisfy a kink and a story that just so happens to have a character losing their virginity along the way. Or a story aimed at pregnancy-fetish readers versus a story in which someone gets knocked up and it's not intended as kinky.
TL;DR-- why is fandom being held to a higher standard of warning label than any real-world medium I can think of?
I get a basic rating system. SFW/NSFW, not-pr0n vs pr0n, extreme graphic violence and various forms of torture. That's a basic CYA mechanism for the community, too-- hide the pr0Nz from the thirteen-year-old readers. Not that most of that really works, but we all play along.
Trigger warnings? I'm sorry. I really do not agree with this one. I cannot and will not anticipate every single thing that could potentially set a reader off, and honestly that's not my problem. Last I checked, actual books didn't carry ratings for that kind of thing. Or magazines. Or comic strips. Movies and video games aren't rated to that level of detail.
"Warning: contains homosexual content-- like, a passing reference to a gay couple."
"Warning: contains parents belittling their children." (This is a trigger for a lot of people, including ME. And to a lot of people, it's comedy gold.)
"Warning: contains a joke about someone jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge."
"Warning: features a human sucking face with a chick with cat ears."
A guy sexually abusing a cat? Look, that already falls under NSFW and other really basic categories. If the penis is out and erect then we are, in the words of a 1970s film producer for United Artists, "In the land of X."
And warning for pairings, especially canon pairings, is something that is, to me, deeply childish and stupid. If your delicate sensibilities must be protected from any and all traces of a pairing you don't like, or one that breaks up your OTP: grow up. A background reference to something you don't like won't hurt the characters and it doesn't hurt you. I've read many, many stories with a background pairing that irked me, one where I felt a writer was pushing their personal agenda in an unrelated story, and my irked feelings still don't deserve to be cosseted by those authors. That's MY problem, not their problem.
Triggers are often subtle. Triggers are entirely subjective. The concept of what is and is not an unacceptable trigger evolves over time. It's all very Justice Potter Stewart: I can't define what crosses the line for me, but I sure know it when I see it. And you know it when you see it. And guess what? We may be 180 degrees apart on what "it" even is.
I mean, seriously-- Tom Sawyer would have to contain a warning for "suicidal ideation" under fandom standards. Among other things. Last I checked, that was still on kiddie-lit reading lists. And don't even get me started on all the people who read Flowers in the Attic as a coming-of-age rite. Or read Anne Rice novels that were basically Homoeroticism 101 disguised as explorations of immortality and the nature of evil. Books on shelves, or on E-readers, do not coddle the reader. Why is amateur online fiction expected to?
I do get warnings for kinks and squicks on the pr0n sites, because if the main point of reading is sexual gratification, then I'd rather not be jerked out of a story because someone's engaging in bloodplay or peeing on their partner. That actually makes total sense to me, even if I am irked by having to break out labels that turn what I'd consider story development into a laundry list of kinks and squicks bereft of context. It's one reason I don't post more on EFFN (sorry, Samu); appending sixteen different warning labels and categories pretty much ruins the surprise factor-- especially as there is something of a difference between a "first time" story someone is reading to satisfy a kink and a story that just so happens to have a character losing their virginity along the way. Or a story aimed at pregnancy-fetish readers versus a story in which someone gets knocked up and it's not intended as kinky.
TL;DR-- why is fandom being held to a higher standard of warning label than any real-world medium I can think of?
