Heading out to case the promise land

I'm not sure this will be all that coherent (see the part about me being angry), and it's probably worth mentioning that I have probably only scratched the surface of the posts already out there on the subject. I also haven't read the story that sparked this whole thing off, and I'm not talking about this specific instance, so much as some of the comments I've seen in the general discussion, at least half of which just made me angry. I got to the third or fourth iteration of, "If they want to be safe in fandom, then people with triggers should just never read a story they don't explicitly no is okay for them," before I closed the window. I just don't see how this is such an issue, especially among people I would've expected more sensitivity from.

I don't dispute you can make arguments for not warning about triggery things. For example, it impinges your right to blah blah blah artistic-y nonsense. Or perhaps, it's a slippery slope, and before you know it, we'll be warning for salt! And maybe origami! And I'm sorry, but I call bullshit.

I don't think anyone in fandom is under any obligation to warn, anymore than they're under any obligation to be polite, or to not show there asses in public. And I think there's room for disagreement over what needs a warning, and how explicit that warning should be. And furthermore, I think you can not warn just out of forgetfulness, or not realising that it might be needed--god knows, that's probably what I would do. But you know what else I think? I think if someone says, "Hey, this unexpected rape scene here was triggery for me," and you knowingly ignore that and don't take the 10 seconds necessary to add a warning (behind a cut, even, if you don't want to spoil the story), then you're an asshole. If you know your story might be triggery, and you deliberately post without taking the ten seconds necessary to include a warning, then you're an asshole.

Saying that people shouldn't read fic without warnings until they've had it verified safe is not an answer. For one thing, it strikes me as just impractical. The volume of fic without warnings is huge, and I can't imagine never being able to click anything until I've emailed the author/checked with a friend/waited for a review to show up. It really, really doesn't sound like that kind of fandom experience would be a lot of fun. But for another thing, it puts the onus on the person with the trigger to always keep themselves safe. And of course they have a responsibility. I doubt anyone with triggers would tell you that they don't; I'm pretty sure they're working pretty damn hard to keep themselves safe, really, I am. But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't help out, you know? I'm lucky enough to have lived a life that has--so far--left me trigger-free. It seems like the least I can do is make things a little easier for people who didn't get that kind of luck. If fandom is supposed to be about safe spaces, then survivors of sexual abuse deserve them, too.

Of course we can talk about the extreme end--someone says they were triggered by a mention of a crossword, and then OMG, whatever will we do! But right now, that's not what's happening, and I don't see how changing the conversation to consider every possible permutation is helpful, or even relevant. It feels a lot like a diversionary argument, to me. And yes, I will admit that there are people who would like never to be made uncomfortable by anything that squicks them--cheating, or character death or mpreg, or whatever--but I really don't think that's what we're talking about here, either. From even my limited knowledge of the subject, I feel confident saying that a trigger isn't a squick; it's not something that just makes you hit the back button and send off a ranty email to someone else in fandom, all, "WTF! Why WOULD SOMEONE WRITE THAT!" It's much, much more than that, and reducing it to the level of someone who doesn't like pegging or watersports is just incredibly short-sighted, and probably hurtful. And the thing is, it costs you nothing to warn, and if you don't, maybe it fucks someone's day up, or their week, or maybe does even more damage than that. How is this not a no-brainer?

If you haven't read it already, it might be helpful to read impertinence's post on triggers (Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.) If like me, you don't really have any firsthand knowledge of this kind of thing, it might be eye-opening.

And I really like this comment:

It sometimes compromises my ability to freely create to be expected to post spoilers (and, yes, "no warnings" can be a spoiler, as can "click to see warnings") for my own work just to accomodate a small segment of the audience. It's also compromising they can't build an overlook tower at the wildlife sanctuary because they can't afford to make it wheelchair accessible. But I still think people with wheelchairs have a right to be able to move around in public places, and I still don't think that people with triggers should have to limit themselves to only certain (increasingly limited) parts of fandom.

Dude, yes. Exactly that.

You know, I really don't care at all who the Oxford Chair of Poetry is. Like, at all. Until this week, I don't even think I knew there was an election going on. But I am also pretty sure that allegations of sexual harassment as recently as 1996 are not long-ago misdemeanours, and I'm pretty sure that it's not the most exacting moral standard ever to expect that the person elected to one of the most respected literary posts in Britain--you know, a university affiliated post--not be linked with stories about sexually harassing his students.

This has been pissing me off all weekend, and it's not like I've actually been reading extensively on it, so I'm probably only scratching the surface of the stupidity. I have no idea whether the allegations are true--although I will say that two students making allegations at separate times is certainly interesting, as is the fact that the later one was settled out of court, and that no denial, to the best of my knowledge, has ever been offered--but none of these (mostly male! shocker!) commentators actually gives a fuck whether they're true or not. (Well, to be fair, one of them, while admitting he didn't know the cases, felt it was appropriate to write them them off as a girl with an over-active imagination.) Mostly, it's better just to have outrage because people were tipped off anonymously, and to insist that it doesn't matter if they're true, because great literary figures can stand above little, petty things--like, you know, being a decent human being, and treating women as people.

For the record, I don't really give a fuck how many other great poets of yesteryear (the good old days! When political correctness wasn't ruining everything!) wouldn't be eligible for the post today if we're going to be all unreasonable and not let good poetry excuse every imaginable character trait--if some of them behaved today as they did then, I sincerely hope they wouldn't get it. Hi, heads up: I can admire their poetry without admiring them as people, or endorsing and rewarding their racism/sexism/general dickishness. I know! I'm a woman, and prone to flights of fancy and foolishness, but these two separate emotions: i can has them.

Jesus. Why is this so hard?

In better news, I've just seen that Obama has picked Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. I would like to say: in your face, loser TNR writer whose name I now forget. (One night, while I was pretending not to be freaking out about SPN, I learned all about how anonymous sources had tipped him off that the Hispanic woman was too angry and outspoken and generally not very smart. It was very educational.)