annoyedWhen I got home, I commented on Twitter that I'd found the book, and @-checked the author, who I thought might be pleased by my delight. It's nice when someone reads something I realized a while ago, and my clock only goes back 2009 (unless you have some of the ElfQuest 'zines I did in high school). The author, someone I have adored since middle school, responded.
"Trigger warning: dangerous ideas."
I sat there for a little while, stunned.
I am simultaneously very sensitive and very thick-skinned. Most of the people I know are. There are things that lance right past my armor and knock me on my ass, and then there are things that I can take for a long time. In the third category are the things I just need to be warned about, so I can choose whether I'm in the mood to deal with them. But here's the thing:
Most stories come with their own trigger warnings. They just aren't called out blatantly as such.
When I pick up a Jack Ketchum book, there will be language on the back about "horrible things" and "terrible crimes" and other coded comments that don't come right out and say "this book has rape in it," but which absolutely say that to someone who has been reading in the genre for a little while. And when I was getting started in the horror genre, I was largely operating on recommendations from friends and librarians--people who would say, when they handed me something, "this may be disturbing." They called out the things that might make the book difficult to read.
Movies are rated. PG, PG-13, R. I've seen a screenshot of a Facebook post going around recently, with a mother saying they had to leave Deadpool with their nine year old, and "why don't we have a labeling system?" Well, we do. It's called "this movie had an R rating." But R-rated movies get edited for television, and we don't think about that when we ask ourselves whether Little Bee enjoyed that film. "Oh, they've seen _________, and it was rated R, so they're ready for Deadpool." Movies get rated R for different reasons. Maybe it's language, maybe it's sex, maybe it's violence. When I was a kid, I tended to just tune out sex: you could take me to a lot of movies rated R for sexy innuendo and mild nudity, and I'd just be bored. But violence could still scare me.
(Note that this is "rated R," not "rated XXX." The fact that I saw a lot of boobies as a kid does not mean I was ready for a bunch of actual porn.)
Video games are rated. T for Teen, M for Mature. Yet everyone I know who works at a video game store has had the angry parent demanding to know why their kids have violent video games. Be...cause...someone didn't want to look at the ratings? Which are also, in some ways, the trigger warnings? Look at what's listed after a rating: those are the triggers. Maybe they're not intended for the person actually consuming the media, but once they're there, they're for everybody. I know people who only play T games, because they got tired of the casual misogyny and violence of M games. Why is that bad?
In the case of books, you're less likely to have a direct rating or label (although Angry Robot does a decent job). At the same time, if the back cover text is halfway decent, you should know what you're getting into. And yes, I am angry when a book promises me one thing and gives me something else. It's not a fun surprise, especially when the "something else" is a nice big bucket of rape and murder.
People who say they want trigger warnings are not necessarily asking to be coddled. They're asking for warning. They're asking for the courtesy that good fanfic writers afford to their readers. They're asking to be allowed to relax into the story. But saying "trigger warning: dangerous ideas" doesn't help anyone. My not wanting to read romanticized, eroticized rape in the middle of my zombie fiction doesn't mean I don't want to read exciting, complex, interesting books; saying that your book is just as triggering as something about child abuse or rape or graphic animal death does a disservice to both your work and your readers.
It can go too far: anything can go too far. I met a reader who told me that they refuse to read any books which include descriptions of food that they are allergic to, and that there should be food trigger warnings (I'm still not sure whether they were trolling me, but they seemed serious). If my book is called Spider Attack, I shouldn't need to warn people about the spiders. But common sense still gets to come to the party.
I have rarely felt so dismissed or talked down to by an author I admired, especially since I had not said or done anything to indicate that I was seeking a trigger warning; I had actually referenced reading the book before. It was a failure of kindness.
We have got to be kinder.
February 21 2016, 08:15:39 UTC 1 year ago
But death is something that people can be legitimately triggered by, so ... I don't know if there's a right answer to this one.
As far as people taking TWs too far, I remember someone asking for a TW for music because she was deaf and it was triggering to read people talking about something she couldn't experience, and another asking for a TW for kittens because of something traumatic in childhood involving a kitten. I honestly have no idea how these people navigate the internet. I have some odd triggers myself, such as biopsies (and especially cervical biopsies, because I have PTSD due to how a doctor treated me during one), but I don't expect people to TW for biopsies. I'm of the opinion that asking or demanding TWs for unusual things can get ridiculous fast, and that lessens the impact and importance of TWs.
Because I do believe that TWs and CWs are important and needed. There are some things that I don't want to be surprised by, like rape. I'm still pissed at my ex who recommended a trilogy published in the last five years and said I'd love it. I am very glad I decided to read reviews first, because the main character is a rapist and murderer who apparently has no remorse. It's grimdark to an extreme degree. It's something that would have been highly triggering for me to read, and I am more than a little disturbed that my ex loved the books. Since I don't personally mind spoilers (the opposite, actually; I took my girlfriend of the time that we were seeing Frozen today after reading a review that spoiled the ending), I seek out reviews that do spoil, because that's about the only way I'll know whether something that sounds good will actually be triggering. There are authors I trust (you're one of them) that I don't seek out spoiler reviews for, but the majority of the time, I read spoilerific reviews first, even if it does mean that I see the twists coming instead of being surprised by them. Honestly, I'd love TW/CWs in books, so I could read more books and enjoy the twists, but my mental health comes first -- and speaking as a multiple rape survivor, I really don't want to be taken by surprise by gratuitous rape, of which there is far too much of in fiction. Sigh.
February 21 2016, 12:32:54 UTC 1 year ago
Warnings for rape, or attempted rape, violent attacks of any kind, including on one's self - yes, definitely. I've once warned for a story simply being "bleak" and judging by the reviews, was right to do so.
February 21 2016, 12:58:30 UTC 1 year ago
Let me give an example. I watched Watchmen with my ex after several feminist friends lauded it and said it was excellent. The narrating character is my Dad. There were so many exact quotes that it was scary, and his attitude was 100% in line with my abusive father. I was shell-shocked, and my ex-partner, who would have realized something wasn't right, would have checked in on me, but they were away and it was just me and my ex-boyfriend. I was literally shaking and trembling, and nauseated.
When the movie was over, I ran to the bathroom and started puking. I started crying uncontrollably. I tried to put into words what bothered me so much, but I wasn't quite able to at that point. I went back through my LJ to find the entry where I talked about it:
TW for abuse
"Watching that movie was like being a teen again, forced into a situation I did not want, helpless to protest or do anything whatsoever. Listen. Listen. Only listen. Never speak. I could have turned the movie off, certainly, but by this point... I simply couldn't do anything but stare and cry and rage. It was like going back home to hell. It was like going back in time to a place where I had no control over any aspect of my own life (well, maybe what underwear I would wear that day) and where I existed solely to serve his whims. Going back to when I didn't know if he was going to lose his "famous Irish temper" and wallop me for some imagined smart-ass comment."
This is a trigger. By the way, I was fucked up, depressed, and suicidal for about a week after watching the movie. It affected me that badly. Now, there are mild, moderate, and major triggers -- this one was a major trigger. A mild trigger, I can handle with an anti-anxiety pill. A moderate one, even with anxiety meds, will fuck me up the rest of the day. Major will fuck me up for days to a week to longer.
There is a vast difference between it and a spoiler warning. I'm not sure if you happened to goof and typed "spoiler" when you meant "trigger" but in case you (or anyone else reading!) didn't know what a trigger was, I figured I'd give a clear example. :)
February 21 2016, 15:34:41 UTC 1 year ago
February 22 2016, 06:59:36 UTC 1 year ago