Okay, so that warnings thing?
IF I promise to warn for triggers in fiction, I need to understand that I must also warn for triggers in any other post that I make.
I am so very, very sorry. I hope I remember this stupid thing I’ve just done, for the rest of my life.
Okay, honestly, I understand triggers. I do! I think that’s rather obvious in the way I write about them. However, you can’t purify the world, and sometimes walking around on eggshells is worse than the trigger. If we all have to announce ourselves up front and avoid each other, where is the communication? I think it’s different on a STORY where I may start to identify with the characters and may experience with them than in a discussion where I am in my own skin… and my skin has to learn how to deal.
Only because I want to not hurt people on LJ– according to their definitions of hurt– we don’t call it a friendslist for nothing…
There are other places where I bar no holds. Here, this community that I have become part of– we ‘buttercup’ those who ask for that.
I am minded of Camille Paglia who opens her mouth outside of acadamia and makes me want to bat her into the left field bleachers. She has a perfect right to her opinons, but i cannpt allow them to go unremarked because it’s so damn damaging for women when non-aca-folk hear her. I have some viewpoints about some issues that depend on subtleties which have no place in general society at this time. And I mean that very seriously, I am not being sarcastic in any way– misunderstanding of a subtle point can lead to very unsubtle damage to real people.
LJ is a general public kind of place, imo. I can work out my subtlties elsewhere.
LOL, CP is hateworthy inside academia too.
yeah… but for more subtle reasons!
Oh, I agree that we don’t want to hurt each other… ever… but to put a warning on even a casual conversation just feels odd. It’s like expecting people to be so fragile they can’t handle a comment. And some people do assume that people who’ve been through something rough are somehow damaged. I know there was one woman who was violently upset about what I did in Control Issues because Jim HAD to be angst-heavy and twitchy and weepy about being raped. Someone else told me that I wasn’t being realistic by having Kaylee react to a rape by wanting to have sex… to reclaim the experience. Victims aren’t always weak or damaged, and sometimes, when people act like a victim needs to be wrapped in cotton, I just… well… get a little homicidal.
it’s not casual conversation — it’s an opinion about michael jackson and his possible actions with his young friends. So yeah, a trigger warning is certainly reasonable.
As I recall, Jim’s social worker was upset that he wasn’t twitchy and weepy about the rape…
Ah… I didn’t realize that upset someone.
Okay, now I see. That did catch my attention, but I’ve also come to terms with the fact that there are two kinds of pedophiles–ones who want to hurt others because they like the power and ones who really think they’re ‘okay.’ They believe they’re showing love… they think they’re doing something mutual…
Weirdly, this is EXACTLY what my original story is about–the one I just put up at Lulu. One of the main characters was horribly abused by a man who thought he was showing love, and because of the abuse, the child learned to go along in order to get the attention he wanted. And then the child’s actions reinforce the abuser because he thinks the child really loves him and he doesn’t recognize the difference between an abused child’s programmed response to being ‘groomed’ and genuine love. The main character in the story is in serious therapy because he feels guilty about never speaking up, but that’s part of an abused child’s training.
So, I guess, in a very long-winded way, I can say that I both see him as an abusive monster and a sad man who believed he was innocent.
I noticed the pointers towards something like that, and my stomach began churning; I plan on buying the book at Lulu. Me, I think I can handle it.
I advise very strong warnings for the chapters you post on LJ, however!
I think that MJ believed he was showing love. And any more discussion about this should take place elsewhere, as this one is meant to be an apology for the previous one.
I have acquired triggery friends as a result of racefail, I think. I feel very strongly about inclusiveness and accuracy in fiction and popular culture. I am not so confident about the tightrope walk between exploring my own world, which may well be triggering for some people, and refraining from that exploration for their sakes. I hadn’t thought about that.
I think anyone who read the first chapter knows it’s going to be about abuse, but the early references are vague to sort of ease people into it… and the book at Lulu is labeled with “memories of abuse,” so I think I’ll be okay, especially since we never really see the abuse, we just see Ryan fighting his way back from it, which is the more interesting part of the journey for me as a writer.
However, I do think it’s good that you were willing to apologize for a questionable comment. Undressing with or sexualizing a child, even with innocent or ignorant motives, is abuse.
Oh, and I made Jim’s social worker all twitchy after a reader got twitchy with me. I decided to just deal with the weirdness up front.
And some people do assume that people who’ve been through something rough are somehow damaged. [...] [W]hen people act like a victim needs to be wrapped in cotton, I just… well… get a little homicidal.
Speaking as a widow, can I give you a hearty “Hell yes” on this? Because all too often, I see fics (and TV shows and movies and books and so on and so forth) about widowhood that get the experience completely wrong. Probably because “It hurt like hell, then I got on with life because the real world doesn’t let you take a time out because your spouse died” isn’t as OMG!Dramatic as “S/He mourned her/his One True Love Forever! — until the new OTL came along, oh look! Here they are now!”
The only things I’d like to add are that there are different levels of being damaged by traumatic events. Not everybody is going to respond to trauma the same way and expecting them to is just insulting.
Exactly… every individual has their own story, but it seems like the only story that gets told is that OMG!Drama.
well, you’re a writer, which story would you tell? *grin*
I’m pro choice about this. I choose to add warnings. Some of my friends are upset that the world wants to wrap them in fluff– they are perfectly welcome to click past the warnings. I figure its the survivor’s choice, and gawds nose I want to be wrapped in cotton wool once in a while myself!
Oh yeah, I’m very much pro-warnings. My complaints are more about the portrayal of trauma survivors in fiction, not about warnings. In fact, I think warnings are a good idea *because* people have different responses to traumatic events and it’s better to have that warning up for those folks who need a head’s up so they can avoid what they don’t want to see.
Not to mention, as others have said, some folks use warnings as a way to find fics they *want* to read. Warnings? Warnings are great. Telling people that their fics are wrong because they didn’t put trauma survivors through the Lifetime Approved Responses to Traumatic Events checklist…not so much *G*
Yeah, that’s a whole different kettle of fish!
Have you met and her very strong edgy writing yet? Regardless of the fandom she writes in, her characters are always completely fleshed out, and she doesn’t pull many punches. Yumminess!
No, I have not, but I am intrigued by what I’ve seen and am considering checking her out — errr…checking out her fics.
THIS.
It’s a hard balancing act, but sometimes people do end up patronizing. I don’t want the world to come with warning labels… although I do generally prefer them on fics.
Okay, honestly, I understand triggers. I do! I think that’s rather obvious in the way I write about them. However, you can’t purify the world, and sometimes walking around on eggshells is worse than the trigger. If we all have to announce ourselves up front and avoid each other, where is the communication? I think it’s different on a STORY where I may start to identify with the characters and may experience with them than in a discussion where I am in my own skin… and my skin has to learn how to deal.
Only because I want to not hurt people on LJ– according to their definitions of hurt– we don’t call it a friendslist for nothing…
There are other places where I bar no holds. Here, this community that I have become part of– we ‘buttercup’ those who ask for that.
I am minded of Camille Paglia who opens her mouth outside of acadamia and makes me want to bat her into the left field bleachers. She has a perfect right to her opinons, but i cannpt allow them to go unremarked because it’s so damn damaging for women when non-aca-folk hear her. I have some viewpoints about some issues that depend on subtleties which have no place in general society at this time. And I mean that very seriously, I am not being sarcastic in any way– misunderstanding of a subtle point can lead to very unsubtle damage to real people.
LJ is a general public kind of place, imo. I can work out my subtlties elsewhere.
LOL, CP is hateworthy inside academia too.
yeah… but for more subtle reasons!
Oh, I agree that we don’t want to hurt each other… ever… but to put a warning on even a casual conversation just feels odd. It’s like expecting people to be so fragile they can’t handle a comment. And some people do assume that people who’ve been through something rough are somehow damaged. I know there was one woman who was violently upset about what I did in Control Issues because Jim HAD to be angst-heavy and twitchy and weepy about being raped. Someone else told me that I wasn’t being realistic by having Kaylee react to a rape by wanting to have sex… to reclaim the experience. Victims aren’t always weak or damaged, and sometimes, when people act like a victim needs to be wrapped in cotton, I just… well… get a little homicidal.
it’s not casual conversation — it’s an opinion about michael jackson and his possible actions with his young friends. So yeah, a trigger warning is certainly reasonable.
As I recall, Jim’s social worker was upset that he wasn’t twitchy and weepy about the rape…
Ah… I didn’t realize that upset someone.
Okay, now I see. That did catch my attention, but I’ve also come to terms with the fact that there are two kinds of pedophiles–ones who want to hurt others because they like the power and ones who really think they’re ‘okay.’ They believe they’re showing love… they think they’re doing something mutual…
Weirdly, this is EXACTLY what my original story is about–the one I just put up at Lulu. One of the main characters was horribly abused by a man who thought he was showing love, and because of the abuse, the child learned to go along in order to get the attention he wanted. And then the child’s actions reinforce the abuser because he thinks the child really loves him and he doesn’t recognize the difference between an abused child’s programmed response to being ‘groomed’ and genuine love. The main character in the story is in serious therapy because he feels guilty about never speaking up, but that’s part of an abused child’s training.
So, I guess, in a very long-winded way, I can say that I both see him as an abusive monster and a sad man who believed he was innocent.
I noticed the pointers towards something like that, and my stomach began churning; I plan on buying the book at Lulu. Me, I think I can handle it.
I advise very strong warnings for the chapters you post on LJ, however!
I think that MJ believed he was showing love. And any more discussion about this should take place elsewhere, as this one is meant to be an apology for the previous one.
I have acquired triggery friends as a result of racefail, I think. I feel very strongly about inclusiveness and accuracy in fiction and popular culture. I am not so confident about the tightrope walk between exploring my own world, which may well be triggering for some people, and refraining from that exploration for their sakes. I hadn’t thought about that.
I think anyone who read the first chapter knows it’s going to be about abuse, but the early references are vague to sort of ease people into it… and the book at Lulu is labeled with “memories of abuse,” so I think I’ll be okay, especially since we never really see the abuse, we just see Ryan fighting his way back from it, which is the more interesting part of the journey for me as a writer.
However, I do think it’s good that you were willing to apologize for a questionable comment. Undressing with or sexualizing a child, even with innocent or ignorant motives, is abuse.
Oh, and I made Jim’s social worker all twitchy after a reader got twitchy with me. I decided to just deal with the weirdness up front.
And some people do assume that people who’ve been through something rough are somehow damaged. [...] [W]hen people act like a victim needs to be wrapped in cotton, I just… well… get a little homicidal.
Speaking as a widow, can I give you a hearty “Hell yes” on this? Because all too often, I see fics (and TV shows and movies and books and so on and so forth) about widowhood that get the experience completely wrong. Probably because “It hurt like hell, then I got on with life because the real world doesn’t let you take a time out because your spouse died” isn’t as OMG!Dramatic as “S/He mourned her/his One True Love Forever! — until the new OTL came along, oh look! Here they are now!”
The only things I’d like to add are that there are different levels of being damaged by traumatic events. Not everybody is going to respond to trauma the same way and expecting them to is just insulting.
Exactly… every individual has their own story, but it seems like the only story that gets told is that OMG!Drama.
well, you’re a writer, which story would you tell? *grin*
I’m pro choice about this. I choose to add warnings. Some of my friends are upset that the world wants to wrap them in fluff– they are perfectly welcome to click past the warnings. I figure its the survivor’s choice, and gawds nose I want to be wrapped in cotton wool once in a while myself!
Oh yeah, I’m very much pro-warnings. My complaints are more about the portrayal of trauma survivors in fiction, not about warnings. In fact, I think warnings are a good idea *because* people have different responses to traumatic events and it’s better to have that warning up for those folks who need a head’s up so they can avoid what they don’t want to see.
Not to mention, as others have said, some folks use warnings as a way to find fics they *want* to read. Warnings? Warnings are great. Telling people that their fics are wrong because they didn’t put trauma survivors through the Lifetime Approved Responses to Traumatic Events checklist…not so much *G*
Yeah, that’s a whole different kettle of fish!
Have you met and her very strong edgy writing yet? Regardless of the fandom she writes in, her characters are always completely fleshed out, and she doesn’t pull many punches. Yumminess!
No, I have not, but I am intrigued by what I’ve seen and am considering checking her out — errr…checking out her fics.
THIS.
It’s a hard balancing act, but sometimes people do end up patronizing. I don’t want the world to come with warning labels… although I do generally prefer them on fics.
Okay, honestly, I understand triggers. I do! I think that’s rather obvious in the way I write about them. However, you can’t purify the world, and sometimes walking around on eggshells is worse than the trigger. If we all have to announce ourselves up front and avoid each other, where is the communication? I think it’s different on a STORY where I may start to identify with the characters and may experience with them than in a discussion where I am in my own skin… and my skin has to learn how to deal.
Only because I want to not hurt people on LJ– according to their definitions of hurt– we don’t call it a friendslist for nothing…
There are other places where I bar no holds. Here, this community that I have become part of– we ‘buttercup’ those who ask for that.
I am minded of Camille Paglia who opens her mouth outside of acadamia and makes me want to bat her into the left field bleachers. She has a perfect right to her opinons, but i cannpt allow them to go unremarked because it’s so damn damaging for women when non-aca-folk hear her. I have some viewpoints about some issues that depend on subtleties which have no place in general society at this time. And I mean that very seriously, I am not being sarcastic in any way– misunderstanding of a subtle point can lead to very unsubtle damage to real people.
LJ is a general public kind of place, imo. I can work out my subtlties elsewhere.
LOL, CP is hateworthy inside academia too.
yeah… but for more subtle reasons!
Oh, I agree that we don’t want to hurt each other… ever… but to put a warning on even a casual conversation just feels odd. It’s like expecting people to be so fragile they can’t handle a comment. And some people do assume that people who’ve been through something rough are somehow damaged. I know there was one woman who was violently upset about what I did in Control Issues because Jim HAD to be angst-heavy and twitchy and weepy about being raped. Someone else told me that I wasn’t being realistic by having Kaylee react to a rape by wanting to have sex… to reclaim the experience. Victims aren’t always weak or damaged, and sometimes, when people act like a victim needs to be wrapped in cotton, I just… well… get a little homicidal.
it’s not casual conversation — it’s an opinion about michael jackson and his possible actions with his young friends. So yeah, a trigger warning is certainly reasonable.
As I recall, Jim’s social worker was upset that he wasn’t twitchy and weepy about the rape…
Ah… I didn’t realize that upset someone.
Okay, now I see. That did catch my attention, but I’ve also come to terms with the fact that there are two kinds of pedophiles–ones who want to hurt others because they like the power and ones who really think they’re ‘okay.’ They believe they’re showing love… they think they’re doing something mutual…
Weirdly, this is EXACTLY what my original story is about–the one I just put up at Lulu. One of the main characters was horribly abused by a man who thought he was showing love, and because of the abuse, the child learned to go along in order to get the attention he wanted. And then the child’s actions reinforce the abuser because he thinks the child really loves him and he doesn’t recognize the difference between an abused child’s programmed response to being ‘groomed’ and genuine love. The main character in the story is in serious therapy because he feels guilty about never speaking up, but that’s part of an abused child’s training.
So, I guess, in a very long-winded way, I can say that I both see him as an abusive monster and a sad man who believed he was innocent.
I noticed the pointers towards something like that, and my stomach began churning; I plan on buying the book at Lulu. Me, I think I can handle it.
I advise very strong warnings for the chapters you post on LJ, however!
I think that MJ believed he was showing love. And any more discussion about this should take place elsewhere, as this one is meant to be an apology for the previous one.
I have acquired triggery friends as a result of racefail, I think. I feel very strongly about inclusiveness and accuracy in fiction and popular culture. I am not so confident about the tightrope walk between exploring my own world, which may well be triggering for some people, and refraining from that exploration for their sakes. I hadn’t thought about that.
I think anyone who read the first chapter knows it’s going to be about abuse, but the early references are vague to sort of ease people into it… and the book at Lulu is labeled with “memories of abuse,” so I think I’ll be okay, especially since we never really see the abuse, we just see Ryan fighting his way back from it, which is the more interesting part of the journey for me as a writer.
However, I do think it’s good that you were willing to apologize for a questionable comment. Undressing with or sexualizing a child, even with innocent or ignorant motives, is abuse.
Oh, and I made Jim’s social worker all twitchy after a reader got twitchy with me. I decided to just deal with the weirdness up front.
And some people do assume that people who’ve been through something rough are somehow damaged. [...] [W]hen people act like a victim needs to be wrapped in cotton, I just… well… get a little homicidal.
Speaking as a widow, can I give you a hearty “Hell yes” on this? Because all too often, I see fics (and TV shows and movies and books and so on and so forth) about widowhood that get the experience completely wrong. Probably because “It hurt like hell, then I got on with life because the real world doesn’t let you take a time out because your spouse died” isn’t as OMG!Dramatic as “S/He mourned her/his One True Love Forever! — until the new OTL came along, oh look! Here they are now!”
The only things I’d like to add are that there are different levels of being damaged by traumatic events. Not everybody is going to respond to trauma the same way and expecting them to is just insulting.
Exactly… every individual has their own story, but it seems like the only story that gets told is that OMG!Drama.
well, you’re a writer, which story would you tell? *grin*
I’m pro choice about this. I choose to add warnings. Some of my friends are upset that the world wants to wrap them in fluff– they are perfectly welcome to click past the warnings. I figure its the survivor’s choice, and gawds nose I want to be wrapped in cotton wool once in a while myself!
Oh yeah, I’m very much pro-warnings. My complaints are more about the portrayal of trauma survivors in fiction, not about warnings. In fact, I think warnings are a good idea *because* people have different responses to traumatic events and it’s better to have that warning up for those folks who need a head’s up so they can avoid what they don’t want to see.
Not to mention, as others have said, some folks use warnings as a way to find fics they *want* to read. Warnings? Warnings are great. Telling people that their fics are wrong because they didn’t put trauma survivors through the Lifetime Approved Responses to Traumatic Events checklist…not so much *G*
Yeah, that’s a whole different kettle of fish!
Have you met and her very strong edgy writing yet? Regardless of the fandom she writes in, her characters are always completely fleshed out, and she doesn’t pull many punches. Yumminess!
No, I have not, but I am intrigued by what I’ve seen and am considering checking her out — errr…checking out her fics.
THIS.
It’s a hard balancing act, but sometimes people do end up patronizing. I don’t want the world to come with warning labels… although I do generally prefer them on fics.
I politely invoke the name of bullshit, Stella. Don’t censor your thoughts in your own journal. Nothing that you say or write will ever offend me, no matter how little I may agree with it- because I know you, and I know your intentions are good. If I ever take issue with something you say, I will make an academic, unloaded remark expressing why I disagree and we will discuss it like civilized people.
You are not the enemy. There are enough truly ignorant and malicious people in the world- why jump on people who we know are on our side for a moment of clumsy expression, or choosing words we don’t like, or expressing themselves in a way that we don’t approve of?
Splitting hairs of righteous indignation seems to be the new one-upmanship among sanctimonious netizens. It’s stupid. It’s immature, it’s pseudo-intellectual, and it’s fucking needlessly divisive.
Did anybody actually think you are in favor of molesting little boys, you know, as long as it’s benign and mild?
Of course fucking not.
Anyone who knows you, even in passing, would know that is fucking ridiculous. No one has more victim empathy than you do.
When I read that post, I thought “Hmm, that didn’t come out the way she intended. It sounds like she’s making excuses for Michael Jackson based on the fact that he was emotionally arrested at the level of an eight year old, and minimizing the trauma to the victims, when what she means to say is that MJ didn’t fit the profile of a malignant, predatory pedophile, who realizes the damage his actions are causing his victims, much like a schizophrenic man who kills someone without understanding the consequences. Which is a valid distinction to make, because although it does not make it any less wrong or less vile, and while it is equally damaging to the victims, motivation and comprehension level does count for something in how we understand the commission of a crime, and it is a mitigating factor in how we judge and deal with that person.”
And that is why I didn’t comment- because I say it for what it was. An lamentable oversight, and not a veritable declaration of your philosophy.
If I had bothered to comment, I would have said something amicable (since, you know, we’re sympatico in our beliefs, and I know that) like “Hey, I’m sure you didn’t mean for that to come off like this, etc, but it sounds like you mean X.”
And you would have said “Of course I don’t mean X! Perish the thought! I merely meant Y.”
And that would have been that.
TRIGGERS IN THIS POST. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
CONT.
However it seems that some people are always lurking, waiting to be offended so they can savor the injustice of it all. And of course, so they can smugly feel just how much better they are then the awful Philistine who dared to voice their feelings in their own journal.
I go to my Cavalleria rehearsal and come home to check LJ, only to see that your comment field has become a semantic peckin’ party. On you.
And I’m sure you are a really good candidate for people who thrive on feeling maligned to prey on, because you are so utterly well-meaning and kind-hearted and terrified of injuring anyone that you immediately crumble like a house of cards and begin bowing and scraping and professing your abject mortification.
And after that little stoning had begun, and you were on your knees, someone else is licking their lips because of the bloodshed, and decides to saunter in and take an even lower blow on a totally unrelated front.
By all means, yes, let’s call her to task. For every fucking word. Even when she tries to defend herself or apologize. Everyone take a turn. It’s like a gang rape.
Who among us doesn’t know how paranoid you are about unintentional racism? I think you’ve made that very clear.
I bit my tongue pretty hard at the level of condescension in one of the latter respondents. I have no intellectual respect for self-righteous people who use a vague umbrella of ultimate cultural relativism to impugn the legitimacy of a perfectly valid human opinion.
No one needs a predetermined amount of melanin to see that Michael Jackson came from a classic abusive family structure- something that indiscriminately crosses race, class and social lines.
Child abuse is child abuse, and the resulting personality disorder was crippling, public and obvious.
The facts are not relative. Whether you are white, black, green, cerise, celadon or eleven shades of variegated puce- it does not change or mitigate the facts: a very young child was abused, exploited, robbed of his natural development, and suffered the cumulative effects of a severely broken psyche because of it.
Is the experience of a family coming from black culture and an underprivileged background and a subsequent unprecedented meteoric rise from poverty a mitigating factor in the intent of what occurred? Very possibly.
It’s analogous to what you intended to say about MJ in the first place. The perspective of the perpetrator does count for something in how we condemn and understand the crime.
However, we don’t say that unless you’ve been an abused child star you can’t possibly judge Michael Jackson for diddling little boys.
The crime is absolute, as is the damage. The circumstances of the perpetrator can only serve to enlighten our comprehension of the situation. Not deny us the right to condemn the outcome.
Saying you have to be black to acknowledge or decry that that harm was done is asinine.
It reminded me of something in my past that I was just telling a friend about the other day.
When we were thirteen, my best friend’s mother was brutalized while she slept by one of the only black serial killers in history.
Kelly actually saw the guy walk down the hall in the middle of the night and assumed it was her mother’s boyfriend, so she went back to sleep.
He blitz attacked and bludgeoned her with what they first thought was a fireplace poker or tire iron, but was actually some kind of a heavy metal object that had a Y-shaped end; they were never able to recover it.
He then put high heeled shoes on her nude body, battered body, posed her legs open crudely and shoved the barrel of a shotgun as far inside her vagina as it would go. (This unusual predilection for posing his victims was eventually what led to his being apprehended).
Kelly was the one who found her mom like that the next morning.
However, I’m sure I have no right to have an opinion about that, because being white (not only white, but a far Northern European by citizenship) I don’t know what his “experience” was up to that point.
Next time a close friend’s relative is murdered I sure hope it’s a white guy, so I can justify having a problem with it.
Re: TRIGGERS IN THIS POST. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
“However it seems that some people are always lurking, waiting to be offended so they can savor the injustice of it all”
Forttunately, i already despise you, so this attitude doesn’t surprise me.
for the record, you’re scum.
That was fast.
Re: TRIGGERS IN THIS POST. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
yikes, fuck! I’m screening this one, my love. That’s nearly triggering for me, and I don’t much trigger.
I’ve challenged Miss Condescension to make her own post, and she thinks that would be a difficult proposition. it’s ironic when other people are pissed off because I’ve talked about the context in which MJ’s behaviors developed- which people are reading as excuses– and she’s pissy because I haven’t talked about the context in which that context developed– which would be making excuses, perhaps.
I don’t intend to censor my thoughts in my lj, but I do intent to warn when I talk about the things that I would warn for in a fic.
Although this episode may winnow my f-list down a smidgin.
Feel free to fully delete what I said, if you prefer. I apologize if I was unnecessarily unkind, but I cannot stand bullying.
I think the relative anonymity of the internet causes some people to showcase an inner ugliness we would never suspect upon meeting them in person, and allows all the bitter closet sadists to indulge in acts of emotional terrorism they would never dream of enacting in real life.
And just like in real life, when toxic people expose themselves, you should cut them out like cancer.
And here’s the thing. Mo one–myself included–is asking Dhamra to censor anything. But as with racefail, I am asking that people think about what they are saying and the implications of it for survivors. Intentions are well and good, but when it is buggered up and comes out as not intended, just as in racefail, it’s time to own up to it.
This is not about censorship. It is about the same sensitivty to other issues and realizing the implication of the words one wrote and not the word one intended to write.
Invoking censorship is derailment and, frankly, bullshit.
I know Dharma well enough to have ascertained what was attempting to be said. And I know Dharma well enough not to de-friend based on one post. Unfortunately, the statements as written hurt a number of people and frankly were insensitive the way written.
Thank you, gwailowrite. I’ll let my friends babble in this post, and correct them. Repeatedly.
because I don’t intend to censor myself, and if my words get buggered up that’s my responsibility– I don’t want my words to bugger, what kind of communication skillz are those?
That…is a point that I sort of half thought about as I was making my Racism and Rape posts but didn’t develop enough.
Thank you.
I broke my rule of not arguing on the internet. Well, fuck.
Sorry for going feral in your LJ, monsieur.
I need to stick to singing opera and writing porn. >:.)
I’d very much appreciate you writing porn, por favor?
I’ll wear my regimentals for you!
Ya know, we all have triggers. They are all specific to us.
Nothing anywhere is guaranteed to us not to have our triggers tripped. For our friends, we can inform them “Hey, I’m sorta tender on this point, so if I get weird on it, you know why.” A friend will note that, possibly avoid the trigger, and certainly not jump up and down on it.
That said, unless every friend you have who might read your LJ will issue you a list specifying their trigger points and you chose to spend the time it will take to cater to that and write warnings over anything you might say — IT IS NOT YOUR JOB. Babe, it’s just not. People are responsible for their OWN issues, for dealing with them, for handling them, and they CANNOT make others responsible for their problems.
Do I have triggers? damn straight. There are several things in this world that will break me down in about 3 seconds. There are movies I will not watch, books I will not read, images I cannot see, even sounds I cannot hear without them provoking sudden, strong reactions (from shivers to tears to gagging/vomiting). I have subjects that make me uncomfortable. Is it anyone else’s fault if I run into one of them? NO! I am responsible for myself. I can stop reading if I feel upset. I can turn away. I can even *gasp* process the experience and work my way through it.
What can’t I do? I cannot demand the world — and especially anyone I like enough to read their LJ — to wrap everything in bubble wrap and safety warnings. That’s putting responsibility on everyone else for my problem. That’s not only ridiculous, it’s not ethical or practical.
It’s sweet and caring of you to want to try to protect others, to not cause hurt to them — but do any of them consider the hurt they cause you with this outlandish demand? You are entitled, completely and totally, to speak your mind in the way you choose, when you choose, and certainly in your LJ, which belongs to YOU. All others have a choice to read it or not, and they take what they get. That you even think this way speaks largely of your good heart and desire to please and accommodate others — and those very qualities lead you to let others stomp on you.
By all means, take responsibility for what you say. That’s being a responsible human being. Expect the same of others. If someone says “that thing you said hurt me because…” by all means reply with “I’m sorry you have this issue and it makes you sensitive about that subject. I hope you find a way through that.” But don’t take their load on your shoulders. It doesn’t help.
Or, let me know and I’ll send you my list of triggers so you can warn for them.
My trigger is people who expect everyone to know their triggers. XD Please adjust your world around me accordingly.
Way to minimize.
This whole thread is full of derailments.
This is a big discussion right now. There are triggers that are reasonable to expect.
Rape, non-con or dub-con
Sexual violence, (as opposed to BDSM)
child abuse (and why did I not remember that?)
Character death,
Drug abuse
domestic violence
suicide
pretty common and not necessary to guess at.
i do ‘warn’ for BDSM practices, or possibly announce for them. Or boast about them…
The thing is, this community is umm 80% women or something, and women tend to get hit harder by the vagarities of life. More of us get raped, battered, attacked, abused domestically. We can be nice to each other.
I like what somebody suggested in another discussion — a “warnings” category for things like rape, domestic violence, etc. and a “kinks” category for things like BDSM or watersports. To me, it seems to separate the two ideas nicely — rape is something to be warned for; BDSM is a kink. If somebody is triggered or even simply made uncomfortable by/not interested in BDSM, they’re still told ahead of time what the story contains and can either read at their own risk or avoid the story entirely based on their preferences.
zackly. I’ve always read “warning” to find both what I did and didn’t want, without worrying about what they were called, you know…
But I’ve changed my heading methods from now on!
I’ve come away from this whole thing with a few different ideas about my fic headers as well. Amadi posted this really neat bit of code that allows forcovered warnings that appear when you highlight them — so folks who don’t want to be spoiled, won’t be and folks who want to read the warning can. It also apparently makes things more accessible for the visually impaired/those using screenreaders which is a nice bit of extra courtesy.
I also like the idea of using anchor tags to link to a long warning at the *bottom* of a fic, so folks who want/need to do so can go, read the warning and jump back to the top. I’m considering doing something similar with long author’s notes (since I can and do occassionally produce really long author’s notes). I love the fact that .html code will allow you to do these sorts of things; sometimes I think we get so set in the mindset of things must be read from the top down that we forget that .html means we can start at the bottom or go somewhere else first and then come back.
Life before fandom…
This is because I was so active in racefail, because I know that minorities are underrepresented in popular culture. And i hate that.
It expanded my f-list. And some of those people are also sensitive about other issues.
If my warnings get clicked through and people get mad, I’ve done all I can, no more.
I politely invoke the name of bullshit, Stella. Don’t censor your thoughts in your own journal. Nothing that you say or write will ever offend me, no matter how little I may agree with it- because I know you, and I know your intentions are good. If I ever take issue with something you say, I will make an academic, unloaded remark expressing why I disagree and we will discuss it like civilized people.
You are not the enemy. There are enough truly ignorant and malicious people in the world- why jump on people who we know are on our side for a moment of clumsy expression, or choosing words we don’t like, or expressing themselves in a way that we don’t approve of?
Splitting hairs of righteous indignation seems to be the new one-upmanship among sanctimonious netizens. It’s stupid. It’s immature, it’s pseudo-intellectual, and it’s fucking needlessly divisive.
Did anybody actually think you are in favor of molesting little boys, you know, as long as it’s benign and mild?
Of course fucking not.
Anyone who knows you, even in passing, would know that is fucking ridiculous. No one has more victim empathy than you do.
When I read that post, I thought “Hmm, that didn’t come out the way she intended. It sounds like she’s making excuses for Michael Jackson based on the fact that he was emotionally arrested at the level of an eight year old, and minimizing the trauma to the victims, when what she means to say is that MJ didn’t fit the profile of a malignant, predatory pedophile, who realizes the damage his actions are causing his victims, much like a schizophrenic man who kills someone without understanding the consequences. Which is a valid distinction to make, because although it does not make it any less wrong or less vile, and while it is equally damaging to the victims, motivation and comprehension level does count for something in how we understand the commission of a crime, and it is a mitigating factor in how we judge and deal with that person.”
And that is why I didn’t comment- because I say it for what it was. An lamentable oversight, and not a veritable declaration of your philosophy.
If I had bothered to comment, I would have said something amicable (since, you know, we’re sympatico in our beliefs, and I know that) like “Hey, I’m sure you didn’t mean for that to come off like this, etc, but it sounds like you mean X.”
And you would have said “Of course I don’t mean X! Perish the thought! I merely meant Y.”
And that would have been that.
I don’t intend to censor my thoughts in my lj, but I do intent to warn when I talk about the things that I would warn for in a fic.
Although this episode may winnow my f-list down a smidgin.
Feel free to fully delete what I said, if you prefer. I apologize if I was unnecessarily unkind, but I cannot stand bullying.
I think the relative anonymity of the internet causes some people to showcase an inner ugliness we would never suspect upon meeting them in person, and allows all the bitter closet sadists to indulge in acts of emotional terrorism they would never dream of enacting in real life.
And just like in real life, when toxic people expose themselves, you should cut them out like cancer.
And here’s the thing. Mo one–myself included–is asking Dhamra to censor anything. But as with racefail, I am asking that people think about what they are saying and the implications of it for survivors. Intentions are well and good, but when it is buggered up and comes out as not intended, just as in racefail, it’s time to own up to it.
This is not about censorship. It is about the same sensitivty to other issues and realizing the implication of the words one wrote and not the word one intended to write.
Invoking censorship is derailment and, frankly, bullshit.
I know Dharma well enough to have ascertained what was attempting to be said. And I know Dharma well enough not to de-friend based on one post. Unfortunately, the statements as written hurt a number of people and frankly were insensitive the way written.
Thank you, gwailowrite. I’ll let my friends babble in this post, and correct them. Repeatedly.
because I don’t intend to censor myself, and if my words get buggered up that’s my responsibility– I don’t want my words to bugger, what kind of communication skillz are those?
I politely invoke the name of bullshit, Stella. Don’t censor your thoughts in your own journal. Nothing that you say or write will ever offend me, no matter how little I may agree with it- because I know you, and I know your intentions are good. If I ever take issue with something you say, I will make an academic, unloaded remark expressing why I disagree and we will discuss it like civilized people.
You are not the enemy. There are enough truly ignorant and malicious people in the world- why jump on people who we know are on our side for a moment of clumsy expression, or choosing words we don’t like, or expressing themselves in a way that we don’t approve of?
Splitting hairs of righteous indignation seems to be the new one-upmanship among sanctimonious netizens. It’s stupid. It’s immature, it’s pseudo-intellectual, and it’s fucking needlessly divisive.
Did anybody actually think you are in favor of molesting little boys, you know, as long as it’s benign and mild?
Of course fucking not.
Anyone who knows you, even in passing, would know that is fucking ridiculous. No one has more victim empathy than you do.
When I read that post, I thought “Hmm, that didn’t come out the way she intended. It sounds like she’s making excuses for Michael Jackson based on the fact that he was emotionally arrested at the level of an eight year old, and minimizing the trauma to the victims, when what she means to say is that MJ didn’t fit the profile of a malignant, predatory pedophile, who realizes the damage his actions are causing his victims, much like a schizophrenic man who kills someone without understanding the consequences. Which is a valid distinction to make, because although it does not make it any less wrong or less vile, and while it is equally damaging to the victims, motivation and comprehension level does count for something in how we understand the commission of a crime, and it is a mitigating factor in how we judge and deal with that person.”
And that is why I didn’t comment- because I say it for what it was. An lamentable oversight, and not a veritable declaration of your philosophy.
If I had bothered to comment, I would have said something amicable (since, you know, we’re sympatico in our beliefs, and I know that) like “Hey, I’m sure you didn’t mean for that to come off like this, etc, but it sounds like you mean X.”
And you would have said “Of course I don’t mean X! Perish the thought! I merely meant Y.”
And that would have been that.
I don’t intend to censor my thoughts in my lj, but I do intent to warn when I talk about the things that I would warn for in a fic.
Although this episode may winnow my f-list down a smidgin.
Feel free to fully delete what I said, if you prefer. I apologize if I was unnecessarily unkind, but I cannot stand bullying.
I think the relative anonymity of the internet causes some people to showcase an inner ugliness we would never suspect upon meeting them in person, and allows all the bitter closet sadists to indulge in acts of emotional terrorism they would never dream of enacting in real life.
And just like in real life, when toxic people expose themselves, you should cut them out like cancer.
And here’s the thing. Mo one–myself included–is asking Dhamra to censor anything. But as with racefail, I am asking that people think about what they are saying and the implications of it for survivors. Intentions are well and good, but when it is buggered up and comes out as not intended, just as in racefail, it’s time to own up to it.
This is not about censorship. It is about the same sensitivty to other issues and realizing the implication of the words one wrote and not the word one intended to write.
Invoking censorship is derailment and, frankly, bullshit.
I know Dharma well enough to have ascertained what was attempting to be said. And I know Dharma well enough not to de-friend based on one post. Unfortunately, the statements as written hurt a number of people and frankly were insensitive the way written.
Thank you, gwailowrite. I’ll let my friends babble in this post, and correct them. Repeatedly.
because I don’t intend to censor myself, and if my words get buggered up that’s my responsibility– I don’t want my words to bugger, what kind of communication skillz are those?
That…is a point that I sort of half thought about as I was making my Racism and Rape posts but didn’t develop enough.
Thank you.
That…is a point that I sort of half thought about as I was making my Racism and Rape posts but didn’t develop enough.
Thank you.
I broke my rule of not arguing on the internet. Well, fuck.
Sorry for going feral in your LJ, monsieur.
I need to stick to singing opera and writing porn. >:.)
I’d very much appreciate you writing porn, por favor?
I’ll wear my regimentals for you!
I broke my rule of not arguing on the internet. Well, fuck.
Sorry for going feral in your LJ, monsieur.
I need to stick to singing opera and writing porn. >:.)
I’d very much appreciate you writing porn, por favor?
I’ll wear my regimentals for you!
Ya know, we all have triggers. They are all specific to us.
Nothing anywhere is guaranteed to us not to have our triggers tripped. For our friends, we can inform them “Hey, I’m sorta tender on this point, so if I get weird on it, you know why.” A friend will note that, possibly avoid the trigger, and certainly not jump up and down on it.
That said, unless every friend you have who might read your LJ will issue you a list specifying their trigger points and you chose to spend the time it will take to cater to that and write warnings over anything you might say — IT IS NOT YOUR JOB. Babe, it’s just not. People are responsible for their OWN issues, for dealing with them, for handling them, and they CANNOT make others responsible for their problems.
Do I have triggers? damn straight. There are several things in this world that will break me down in about 3 seconds. There are movies I will not watch, books I will not read, images I cannot see, even sounds I cannot hear without them provoking sudden, strong reactions (from shivers to tears to gagging/vomiting). I have subjects that make me uncomfortable. Is it anyone else’s fault if I run into one of them? NO! I am responsible for myself. I can stop reading if I feel upset. I can turn away. I can even *gasp* process the experience and work my way through it.
What can’t I do? I cannot demand the world — and especially anyone I like enough to read their LJ — to wrap everything in bubble wrap and safety warnings. That’s putting responsibility on everyone else for my problem. That’s not only ridiculous, it’s not ethical or practical.
It’s sweet and caring of you to want to try to protect others, to not cause hurt to them — but do any of them consider the hurt they cause you with this outlandish demand? You are entitled, completely and totally, to speak your mind in the way you choose, when you choose, and certainly in your LJ, which belongs to YOU. All others have a choice to read it or not, and they take what they get. That you even think this way speaks largely of your good heart and desire to please and accommodate others — and those very qualities lead you to let others stomp on you.
By all means, take responsibility for what you say. That’s being a responsible human being. Expect the same of others. If someone says “that thing you said hurt me because…” by all means reply with “I’m sorry you have this issue and it makes you sensitive about that subject. I hope you find a way through that.” But don’t take their load on your shoulders. It doesn’t help.
Or, let me know and I’ll send you my list of triggers so you can warn for them.
My trigger is people who expect everyone to know their triggers. XD Please adjust your world around me accordingly.
Way to minimize.
This whole thread is full of derailments.
This is a big discussion right now. There are triggers that are reasonable to expect.
Rape, non-con or dub-con
Sexual violence, (as opposed to BDSM)
child abuse (and why did I not remember that?)
Character death,
Drug abuse
domestic violence
suicide
pretty common and not necessary to guess at.
i do ‘warn’ for BDSM practices, or possibly announce for them. Or boast about them…
The thing is, this community is umm 80% women or something, and women tend to get hit harder by the vagarities of life. More of us get raped, battered, attacked, abused domestically. We can be nice to each other.
I like what somebody suggested in another discussion — a “warnings” category for things like rape, domestic violence, etc. and a “kinks” category for things like BDSM or watersports. To me, it seems to separate the two ideas nicely — rape is something to be warned for; BDSM is a kink. If somebody is triggered or even simply made uncomfortable by/not interested in BDSM, they’re still told ahead of time what the story contains and can either read at their own risk or avoid the story entirely based on their preferences.
zackly. I’ve always read “warning” to find both what I did and didn’t want, without worrying about what they were called, you know…
But I’ve changed my heading methods from now on!
I’ve come away from this whole thing with a few different ideas about my fic headers as well. Amadi posted this really neat bit of code that allows forcovered warnings that appear when you highlight them — so folks who don’t want to be spoiled, won’t be and folks who want to read the warning can. It also apparently makes things more accessible for the visually impaired/those using screenreaders which is a nice bit of extra courtesy.
I also like the idea of using anchor tags to link to a long warning at the *bottom* of a fic, so folks who want/need to do so can go, read the warning and jump back to the top. I’m considering doing something similar with long author’s notes (since I can and do occassionally produce really long author’s notes). I love the fact that .html code will allow you to do these sorts of things; sometimes I think we get so set in the mindset of things must be read from the top down that we forget that .html means we can start at the bottom or go somewhere else first and then come back.
Life before fandom…
This is because I was so active in racefail, because I know that minorities are underrepresented in popular culture. And i hate that.
It expanded my f-list. And some of those people are also sensitive about other issues.
If my warnings get clicked through and people get mad, I’ve done all I can, no more.
Ya know, we all have triggers. They are all specific to us.
Nothing anywhere is guaranteed to us not to have our triggers tripped. For our friends, we can inform them “Hey, I’m sorta tender on this point, so if I get weird on it, you know why.” A friend will note that, possibly avoid the trigger, and certainly not jump up and down on it.
That said, unless every friend you have who might read your LJ will issue you a list specifying their trigger points and you chose to spend the time it will take to cater to that and write warnings over anything you might say — IT IS NOT YOUR JOB. Babe, it’s just not. People are responsible for their OWN issues, for dealing with them, for handling them, and they CANNOT make others responsible for their problems.
Do I have triggers? damn straight. There are several things in this world that will break me down in about 3 seconds. There are movies I will not watch, books I will not read, images I cannot see, even sounds I cannot hear without them provoking sudden, strong reactions (from shivers to tears to gagging/vomiting). I have subjects that make me uncomfortable. Is it anyone else’s fault if I run into one of them? NO! I am responsible for myself. I can stop reading if I feel upset. I can turn away. I can even *gasp* process the experience and work my way through it.
What can’t I do? I cannot demand the world — and especially anyone I like enough to read their LJ — to wrap everything in bubble wrap and safety warnings. That’s putting responsibility on everyone else for my problem. That’s not only ridiculous, it’s not ethical or practical.
It’s sweet and caring of you to want to try to protect others, to not cause hurt to them — but do any of them consider the hurt they cause you with this outlandish demand? You are entitled, completely and totally, to speak your mind in the way you choose, when you choose, and certainly in your LJ, which belongs to YOU. All others have a choice to read it or not, and they take what they get. That you even think this way speaks largely of your good heart and desire to please and accommodate others — and those very qualities lead you to let others stomp on you.
By all means, take responsibility for what you say. That’s being a responsible human being. Expect the same of others. If someone says “that thing you said hurt me because…” by all means reply with “I’m sorry you have this issue and it makes you sensitive about that subject. I hope you find a way through that.” But don’t take their load on your shoulders. It doesn’t help.
Or, let me know and I’ll send you my list of triggers so you can warn for them.
My trigger is people who expect everyone to know their triggers. XD Please adjust your world around me accordingly.
Way to minimize.
This whole thread is full of derailments.
This is a big discussion right now. There are triggers that are reasonable to expect.
Rape, non-con or dub-con
Sexual violence, (as opposed to BDSM)
child abuse (and why did I not remember that?)
Character death,
Drug abuse
domestic violence
suicide
pretty common and not necessary to guess at.
i do ‘warn’ for BDSM practices, or possibly announce for them. Or boast about them…
The thing is, this community is umm 80% women or something, and women tend to get hit harder by the vagarities of life. More of us get raped, battered, attacked, abused domestically. We can be nice to each other.
I like what somebody suggested in another discussion — a “warnings” category for things like rape, domestic violence, etc. and a “kinks” category for things like BDSM or watersports. To me, it seems to separate the two ideas nicely — rape is something to be warned for; BDSM is a kink. If somebody is triggered or even simply made uncomfortable by/not interested in BDSM, they’re still told ahead of time what the story contains and can either read at their own risk or avoid the story entirely based on their preferences.
zackly. I’ve always read “warning” to find both what I did and didn’t want, without worrying about what they were called, you know…
But I’ve changed my heading methods from now on!
I’ve come away from this whole thing with a few different ideas about my fic headers as well. Amadi posted this really neat bit of code that allows forcovered warnings that appear when you highlight them — so folks who don’t want to be spoiled, won’t be and folks who want to read the warning can. It also apparently makes things more accessible for the visually impaired/those using screenreaders which is a nice bit of extra courtesy.
I also like the idea of using anchor tags to link to a long warning at the *bottom* of a fic, so folks who want/need to do so can go, read the warning and jump back to the top. I’m considering doing something similar with long author’s notes (since I can and do occassionally produce really long author’s notes). I love the fact that .html code will allow you to do these sorts of things; sometimes I think we get so set in the mindset of things must be read from the top down that we forget that .html means we can start at the bottom or go somewhere else first and then come back.
Life before fandom…
This is because I was so active in racefail, because I know that minorities are underrepresented in popular culture. And i hate that.
It expanded my f-list. And some of those people are also sensitive about other issues.
If my warnings get clicked through and people get mad, I’ve done all I can, no more.