This Isn't Just An Internet Problem

[chasingtides]

I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you take a break from writing your thesis and your giant stack of fic fests and go read yourself some metafandom tonight?"

Well, now I'm... well, I'm not kicking puppies. I'm kicking stuffed bunny nuggets, but it comes down to the same effect. I didn't expect to see people I respect (albeit on the internet) to be engaging in victim-blaming behavior.

Freda Adler said, "“Rape is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused.” I'm sad to see that she continues to be right, even here.

Holy shit, I'm really angry. I've actually been talking to fandom-involved friends about this and I think this is really important to get out there.

zvi writes 4) The use of the word "privilege" with the categories "reader" and "writer" doesn't make sense. Privilege is talking about systemic advantages accorded to one group of people over another group of people, where membership in either group is either involuntary, a source of a stable sense of identity, e.g. race, religion, gender, health status, age, class.

Wow. I had no fucking idea that rape was voluntary. Call the presses!

Thanks for letting me know, zvi, that I was, in fact, asking for it.

I'm not really sure if I have a whole lot of rational words for the
zvi and liviapenn. If you haven't seen what they've talked about, what they've done, I would advise you to read the post on unfunnybusiness. They summarize things quite nicely. If you're looking for something short and to the point, I advise you look at lcsbanana's post.

Highlights include: The aforementioned "fact" that being raped (abused, assaulted, molested) is a voluntary act; you should automatically assume that unless something is labelled "Does not contain rape (incest, assault, torture, etc.)" that it does include rape (incest, assault, torture, etc.); it is emotional blackmail to ask for warnings after having been triggered; I can only hurt people if I actually intend to hurt people, if I do not want to hurt you, you are not hurt; if you are in such a bad mental state, just get therapy and avoid all media until you're cured; it's the victims of trauma who are privileged; warning for graphic rape is the same as warning for beach balls (and cutting hair and sparkly kittens!); if I say so, I'm not part of rape culture or silencing culture; general silencing of people; general derailing of arguments.

If you're interested in derailing of arguments. check out Derailing for Dummies! It was brought up and made for RaceFail '09.

Ironically - or not - it is applicable here. Applying arguments like, "Why should I warn when I have one character brutally rape another, with graphic descriptions of blood and pain and the crying and the fear? If I do that, someone will want me to warn for sparkly kittens and that is just not fair!" is a derailing argument. Similar arguments would be, "Why should same sex marriage be legal? After that, people will want to marry ducks!" This is also part of the "You're just being oversensitive argument." Clearly, being raped (assaulted, abused, tortured, molested) is the exact same thing as beach balls and sparkly kittens.

There are some things in this that are frustrating me more than other.

One is that these people who are slamming down the idea that rape/assault/abuse is a real problem that should be dealt with by people other than survivors, these people who are saying that experiencing trauma gives you privilege (the privilege to be silenced? to be hurt? to have my choices taken away from me?), these people who are saying that not having the problems of triggers, these people who are derailing the main argument here, are, at least in some cases, the people who argued so loudly during RaceFail.

It was good that they stood up during RaceFail. It was good that there were voices to be heard, that people spoke. However, it is not good that these same people are using the tactics that they denounced. It is not good that these people - or any people - are silencing other people.

In the end, these are not just issues of fandom.

I am speaking as a survivor myself. I am not comfortable going into the details in an open forum, but it does effect my everyday life. It does affect how I react to what I read. Often, if I have a warning, if I am in a good mental place, I can brace myself for it, especially if I've heard good things about either the story or the author. Being blind-sided by graphic rape, even if I am in a good state of mind, can be bad. Being blind-sided by it when I'm in a bad mental state - say, after having a flashback - can be devastating.

Did the author intend to do this to me? No. Do I have some tools at my disposal with which I can begin to deal with this? Yes. However, this does not mean that the bad thing did not happen.

Fandom also does not exist within a vacuum.

When you tell a survivor that s/he should just shut up and deal with it, you are acting along with the rest of the culture that silence survivors. You are speaking alongside all of the people who have told us it is inappropriate for us to talk about what happened to us. When you tell a survivor that the survivor wanted to be a victim, chose to be a victim, or was asking for it somehow, you are standing among many who speak for the victim-blaming culture. When you tell us that rape is like beach balls, your voice is part of the greater voice that tells us that our pain isn't real, that our choice doesn't matter - that our attackers, abusers, assaulters, and rapists matter more, mean more, are more people than we do and are.

People have protested that fandom is their fun place. Fandom is for them to have fun and play and why should they care about our feelings?

Ponder the culture that you're enacting. Just think about it. Do you really want to perpetuate this, even if, or especially if, this is your fun?

Comments

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I've seen someone else's rage sparked because of this, though they weren't as specific.

I must admit, it's just deplorable, those 'highlights' in particular just make me cringe on so many levels. I am a rape survivor who does, on occasion, like to read rapefic.

But when I'm not in the mood, I would like warnings so I can avoid noncon and being triggered. Imho, it's even more appropriate than warning for BDSM, which is considered a pretty PC thing to do for those who may be 'squicked' by it. Hell, I put warnings in my journal (or at least try to) every time I mention my history, or even extreme health / surgery experiences. It's considerate. And how hard is it really to write 'warning, this may be triggery for X reasons?'

These people need lobotomies to move them into a greater level of intelligence. *sighs*

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I'm one of the people who will purposefully read triggery things, when I'm able to and in a safe space.

I've worked long and hard at making my bedroom a safe space. If I'm in a good head space and at home, I can read a trigger-y thing and learn to deal with it. It also means that I'm developing coping mechanisms for when I don't feel so safe.

If I'm not in that good and safe space, though, reading something that's horrible and graphic and totally unwarned for can be horrible.

I'm also up for an open discussion. Discussion is good. However, from what I've seen, there is a perpetuation of rape culture and victim blaming rather than open discussion. And I am just not down with that. At all.

[smallcaps.livejournal.com]

FWIW, liviapenn seems to have changed her tune noticeably, which makes me feel a little better about humanity.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

That makes me feel a little better.

Part of my despair is that zvi was fairly vocal in RaceFail -she's one of the people who pointed out that unintentional racism still hurts. The hypocrisy is sort of boggling.

[sgrio.livejournal.com]

You know, warning for rape is (IMO) just COMMON COURTESY. I'm leery of warning for plot twists, on the whole, but when it's something that could really shock/hurt someone- well, yeah. I'm not going to traumatize people for the sake of plot. Except for character death (unless you know right from the start that one of the characters is dead or going to die, which seems to be my modus operandi).

But, then again, character death /= rape. Different kind of trauma.

*hugs*

[rugbybaby.livejournal.com]

The overall 'shut up and deal with it' attitude gets me every time. In this case, I have a hard time understanding it. Clearly people don't write this stuff to offend other people, and I doubt anyone is accusing them of that. But it has to be said that people will have reactions to it, and you can't say 'you're doin' it wrong' if they interpret/react in a way you don't like or didn't intend.

I think mainly people just get so defensive and don't know how to handle these situations, which is understandable, unless they don't find it in them to learn from it.

[deccaboo.livejournal.com]

cynatnite; "It seems like majority of folks here have not a clue on PTSD or the affects of it. I wrote a story based on a graphic rape and the aftermath. PTSD was a big portion of it. The character wasn't protected from bad things that might provoke him. He was given tools to deal with it when it does happen so that he can live as close to a normal of a life as possible."
Because writing a story featuring a character suffering from PTSD makes you more of an expert on it than someone who is actually living in the actual real-life world with PTSD. Apparently.

I must have blinked and missed the bit in fandom when it stopped being common courtesy to warn for rape/non-con/torture...

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

And PTSD is clearly just one thing and you can only deal with it and react with it in one way.

[deccaboo.livejournal.com]

Obviously. If you're not a textbook case you're clearly making it up.

[faunaana.livejournal.com]

Fandom also does not exist within a vacuum.

Lord, THIS. I was having a conversation the other day with someone, and this was one of my points - that there is no divide between the fandom and life as fandom would not exist without life. And that no matter how explicit the warnings, there is caveat emptor on the reader. That is, no warnings given? Likely best to scroll on by. Explicit warnings? Assess whether one is in a place to dive into a fic dealing with certain issues.

I am extremely troubled by the new comm that popped up to, I guess, protect people from triggering fics. I wrote at length about that in another place, and I won't bore you with the tedium of it. Suffice to say, onelittlesleep succinctly wrote:

I can't even really prepare properly for what's going to be triggering because usually I'm not even aware that something will trigger me until like, it HAPPENS.

I am troubled by the ~artistic integrity~ or whatever argument, but also by "here a list of author's who don't warn" (as if the reader can't deduce that there are no warnings listed for themselves?) and allowing a person I do not know to subjectively vet a fic for me when triggers are subjective and can be amorphous in the first place.

And just because I chose to not lay out my own issues doesn't make them any less valid than someone else who does chose to do that. But most importantly, to claim doing ~research~ on a topic such as PTSD and therefore be an ~expert~ as to how people will react is so asinine, I can barely fathom it. PTSD is a wily bitch, and as noted in the quote above, a reader often doesn't even know how they will react. So informing others that there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way is so fucking infuriating, I don't even know what to do with my rage.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I don't think that warnings are 100% fool proof. But I think it is more useful to have them than not to have them.

There have been times where I've been warned, gone ahead, and had issues anyway. There's one specific author in the Supernatural fandom who, despite the fact that she's quite popular and a good writer, I refuse to read. She uses warnings, but the line between dub-con and rape seems to be fuzzy in her writing - much of it is of the "No, no, no, stop! Oh, yes, keep going!" variety, even when it's not supposed to be dub-con. I learned the hard way that even when her only warning is "incest" or "graphic" I probably shouldn't read it.

However, in this same fandom, I once read a fic that was labeled "fluff/schmoop." I had seen it recommended in several places and none of these places carried any warnings or suggestions that there was anything other than sparkly kittens and sunshine in this fic. However, lo and behold, I ended up reading not only about Sam graphically raping Dean (from Dean's point of view) but then everyone from here to kingdom come (except John) defending Sam "because he loves Dean." And somewhere along the way, Dean basically became Sam's sex toy. I have no idea. In any case - having some kind of label in there, other than "incest, fluff" would have been really, really helpful.

(I would also say that this falls under the heading of "misuse of header information." Before the moratorium on rape rants, this seemed at least fairly common over at fanficrants. A fic would be labeled something like fluff or schmoop or adorableness or anything involving happiness and joy and then the reader would be thrown into a rape scene or dub con. As I said in my post and moonvoice mentioned - being able to be in the right state of mind can make all of the difference in the world and I don't think that is something that just applies to survivors. )

[eska-rina.livejournal.com]

but also by "here a list of author's who don't warn" (as if the reader can't deduce that there are no warnings listed for themselves?)
I know this comment is some days old, but - I'm not sure if I'm reading you right..? Are you saying that people can see for them selves if there's no warning without these lists?

'Cause, yeah, people can see if there's no warnings listed, but what they can't see if this is because the author never warns or if it's because there's nothing to warn about. I think those lists are supposed to be made up of people who never warns even if they write about things that deserve a warning. Back when I was superactive in fandom and read fics that weren't recced, I had my own little, private list of people, who wrote about things that I hated to read about, but who never warned for it. I test things out myself, as (back then) I didn't really have any triggers, but can people with triggers do it as safely as I could? From what I understand - no :/

[faunaana.livejournal.com]

First, please do not presume that I don't have my own triggers. This seems common in these discussions - that if you don't preface every comment by laying yourself bare, that you don't have very real triggers. That's presumptive and antithetical to this conversation. And puts me, unnecessarily, on the defensive.

If a writer puts no warnings whatsoever, then why ASSUME there doesn't need to be any? The reasoning seems to be "OH, NO WARNINGS AT ALL = HAPPY FUN TIMES FOR ALL!" That's a logical fallacy. Its assuming that no warnings = no need to warn. Why? From what I've seen its a fandom convention, or netiquette if you will. Nonetheless, it doesn't stop the reasoning from being flawed. And that seems to be what your comment is based on.

Meanwhile, my triggers are no where NEAR the things that most of these conversations are about. Rape, non-con, dub-con, death, mutilation, etc., etc., are fine with me. Whereas fluffy, sweet, apparently super happy fun times fic triggers me. So I navigate stories in a totally different way than nearly everyone is talking about. And if I want to be pedantic about it, then I would say that my triggers are being completed ignored and discounted before I can even bring them up. There seems to be only one space for triggers to exist - and that is in discussion of triggers for explicit sexual violence. Its just as sidelining for people who are triggered, for example, by fluffy white kittens frolicking in a field of daises as how the entire discussion about people's sexual violence triggers began. Its okay to talk about how rape triggers people, but not if kittens do. I'm not being hyperbolic - shit like that DOES trigger me.

So I already have a skill set through my experiences in navigating fic that helps me avoid those fics. I am deeply bothered by public lists of people who "don't warn" or whatever. First, because those lists completely ignore and discount triggers that AREN'T the "common" ones; second because it takes responsiblity from me to that I am, due to my own personal experiences, unwilling to concede.

Obviously, my approach to the conversation is far out in left field from the meat of it. But my opinion is just as valid as any other - especially because it is grounded in very real personal experiences. I don't come at this without serious thought, first.

At the end of the day for me, there's nothing that says that every fic has to be read. As such, my opinion - that if there's no warnings, the safest choice is to not read the fic.

[ibroketuesday.livejournal.com]

This fuckery fills me with such rage. I'm not a victim of sexual assault myself, thank God, but why would you take the risk of doing something as painful as triggering someone to preserve the "artistic integrity" of your story? Fuck it. I can't even read the metafandom post. This kind of bullshit makes me want to throttle people.

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

People have protested that fandom is their fun place. Fandom is for them to have fun and play and why should they care about our feelings?

I am one of those people for whom fandom is my fun place.
I am ALSO one of those people who have experienced violence.

If fandom being their fun place means they get to write rape and violence and abuse and suicide and self-harm and all those things that trigger me (and they can, and they will, and I have no problem with those things being written unless they are depictions of child pornography eta: intended to arouse or titillate readers), then why can't fandom being MY fun place mean that if they do write those things and post them, why can't they let me know that those things are coming? Because I guaran-damn-tee that if I read depictions of rape/suicide/abuse/violence and didn't have the ability to prepare myself for them, fandom has stopped being my fun place where I go to get away from the bad things. Fandom has become something that hurt me.

[keincaled.livejournal.com]

I agree with you 100% of the rape argument so I'm not going to comment too much on that as stellar points have already been made by you and others and I would just be rehasing, but I do have to rant a little.

The "I don't have to warn" thing pisses me off in general and has pissed me off for years. Fandom may be the place where we all play and can (for the most part) write what we wish - however that in no way absolves writers of not warning their audience of graphic content. It's irresponsible, wanky, posturing. "I am so awesome and this is my damn sandbox so I don't have to warn anyone about my rapefic! (even if it's going to bother some people right down to their core)." I've seen fics out there with graphic child molestation, major BDSM, necrophilia, and all kinds of shit. I have a very high kink tolerance, but there are some things that I do not want to read (including graphic rape, btw) and I don't want to be in the middle of a fic when I realize what's going on because the author was too arrogant to warn his or her audience about the content. When I post fic it takes about 7 seconds of thought to run through the general MPAA ratings in my head and say "gee, my fic has X and some people not might want to read about X so I will write in Warning: Has X, rated NC-17." That was difficult. :P Things like this are why I can't go too deep into fandom anymore, because I just get pissed off. On another note, I want people to read my fics because they are genuinely interested in them not because I'm on the sidelines going "teehee I didn't put in any warnings so the part of my audience that would have been squicked/disturbed will not know until it's too late!"

Readers keep fandom going and fic writers popular. I think that if enough people spoke out and said "I am not going to read your fic journal/community because you don't warn" that may help (or am I just being an optimist?). This is also irresponsible modding if it's being posted in comms - I have been a mod and all the current mods I know would lay the smackdown on someone who didn't post warnings.

[sarari.livejournal.com]

Fandom also does not exist within a vacuum.

This is pretty much what it boils down. Those who don't choose to accept this feel like it gives them a free pass to do whatever they want, like not include warnings. They don't seem to see the line between "don't write rapefic/dubcon/incest/etc" and "warn people if the piece contains rapefic/dubcon/incest/etc" and react to these as if they were the same type of infringement upon their webby freedom.

I've managed to avoid reading things I'm not prepaired for by not reading fics above a PG-13 rating with no warnings. It shouldn't have to be that way and I probably miss out on a few good fics, but it's the only way I can protect my fic-reading boundaries.