Fanfic Content Warnings
May. 22nd, 2019 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI take content warnings seriously. Really, I do.
I teach upper-level college classes in women’s fiction, queer fiction, and horror fiction, which collectively contain all manner of gendered violence. I also teach non-Western fiction, which can sometimes contain depictions of politicized issues (such as race) that some Americans might find difficult or offensive. I don’t give my students a written list of content warnings, as such a list can be triggering in and of itself, but I do give them specific warnings in advance of a reading as part of the “housekeeping” announcements I usually make before I start class; and, like all announcements, I repeat content warnings in staggered intervals to make sure the message has a chance to reach everyone who needs it. I also try to be sensitive to the specific needs of individual students, who have disclosed a range of personal triggers from “portrayals of self-harm” to “vivid descriptions of the color red.” Making sure that no one in my classes is exposed to triggering content without reasonable warning is the easiest and least awkward thing in the world, and I genuinely don’t understand why there is or ever was a debate about it.
So, when I say this, I say it as someone who has devoted a great deal of thought to the issue and accumulated several years of relevant experience dealing with it:
I don’t think fanfiction needs to be tagged with appropriate content warnings in order for the author to have the “right” to post it.
I’ve certainly found my way into stories that I had to back-button out of, and I appreciate when fic writers tag the obvious content warnings (which I suspect actually helps readers find these stories, especially when it comes to niche interests). That being said, I don’t think it makes any sense to treat the people who read sexually explicit fanfic on AO3 like innocent children whose hands need to be held at all times. Like, if a story description reads “Bowser pounds Peach with his monster cock in front of an audience,” then the reader should be expected to understand what they’re getting into.
It’s also frustrating that many of the content warnings I’ve started to see in the past two years reflect puritanical American standards regarding the “protected status” of children, who must never be exposed to “bad” things until they’re 21. A good example of this is the recent insistence on tagging things like “underage drinking,” because it’s apparently “abusive” if an anime catboy from a Japanese video game set in a fantasy world so much as mentions having had wine with dinner. This is especially distressing because a “Mature” or “Explicit” rating on a story clearly indicates that it’s adult content that an adult has written for the amusement of other adults. If someone is still too young to be comfortable with adult themes and depictions of the adult world, then they shouldn’t be reading that story in the first place.
According to the same logic, I believe an adult reader should be expected to understand that a fictional depiction of something is not intended to condone or promote it. Fanfic in which two Overwatch characters take turns pegging each other is not a Disney movie meant to teach life lessons to children. If one of the characters has a mental illness or a tragic past that isn’t properly addressed within the narrative according to current standards of political correctness, this is not “erasure” or “bad representation.” Representation is achieved by people from marginalized positions having a platform to give voice to their stories and perspectives, and making these people afraid to use this platform because they’ve watched people like them being violently harassed for not tagging their smutfic with “romanticized depiction of a disability” (or what have you) isn’t conducive to actual representation.
An argument I see with disturbing frequency on fandom discourse blogs is something along the lines of “it’s okay to write fanfic with dark themes if it’s properly tagged, because this helps people understand that what they’re reading is problematic.” If you compare this to a similar statement meant to promote inclusive representation, such as “it’s okay to write fanfic because your voice is important and you deserve a chance to speak,” it becomes clear how stressful and confining moral prescriptivism is. Why does fiction – especially fanfiction, which is subcultural and countercultural – need to have to have some sort of moral in order to be allowed to exist?
It’s obvious to me that this whole mess is caught up in the sexist expectation that adult women should be the keepers of public morality. According to Tumblr-based fandom, which reflects the near-constant messaging present in many societies across the world, a woman stops being her own person and starts being a mother at around the age of 25. Once she’s crossed this threshold, her main purpose in life is to THINK OF THE CHIDLERN!!1! at all times. As a genderqueer nonbinary person, I understand that not everyone who writes and reads fanfic is “a woman,” but this doesn’t change the fact that fandom policing mirrors the purity politics that many women have to deal with in real life, according to which they’re only “allowed” to do something “selfish” if they can justify it as morally wholesome.
In any case, I still stand behind my main principle when it comes to fandom, which is that fictional characters are not real. Actual human beings, on the other hand, deserve not to be harassed for what they do for fun on the internet in their spare time.
I teach upper-level college classes in women’s fiction, queer fiction, and horror fiction, which collectively contain all manner of gendered violence. I also teach non-Western fiction, which can sometimes contain depictions of politicized issues (such as race) that some Americans might find difficult or offensive. I don’t give my students a written list of content warnings, as such a list can be triggering in and of itself, but I do give them specific warnings in advance of a reading as part of the “housekeeping” announcements I usually make before I start class; and, like all announcements, I repeat content warnings in staggered intervals to make sure the message has a chance to reach everyone who needs it. I also try to be sensitive to the specific needs of individual students, who have disclosed a range of personal triggers from “portrayals of self-harm” to “vivid descriptions of the color red.” Making sure that no one in my classes is exposed to triggering content without reasonable warning is the easiest and least awkward thing in the world, and I genuinely don’t understand why there is or ever was a debate about it.
So, when I say this, I say it as someone who has devoted a great deal of thought to the issue and accumulated several years of relevant experience dealing with it:
I don’t think fanfiction needs to be tagged with appropriate content warnings in order for the author to have the “right” to post it.
I’ve certainly found my way into stories that I had to back-button out of, and I appreciate when fic writers tag the obvious content warnings (which I suspect actually helps readers find these stories, especially when it comes to niche interests). That being said, I don’t think it makes any sense to treat the people who read sexually explicit fanfic on AO3 like innocent children whose hands need to be held at all times. Like, if a story description reads “Bowser pounds Peach with his monster cock in front of an audience,” then the reader should be expected to understand what they’re getting into.
It’s also frustrating that many of the content warnings I’ve started to see in the past two years reflect puritanical American standards regarding the “protected status” of children, who must never be exposed to “bad” things until they’re 21. A good example of this is the recent insistence on tagging things like “underage drinking,” because it’s apparently “abusive” if an anime catboy from a Japanese video game set in a fantasy world so much as mentions having had wine with dinner. This is especially distressing because a “Mature” or “Explicit” rating on a story clearly indicates that it’s adult content that an adult has written for the amusement of other adults. If someone is still too young to be comfortable with adult themes and depictions of the adult world, then they shouldn’t be reading that story in the first place.
According to the same logic, I believe an adult reader should be expected to understand that a fictional depiction of something is not intended to condone or promote it. Fanfic in which two Overwatch characters take turns pegging each other is not a Disney movie meant to teach life lessons to children. If one of the characters has a mental illness or a tragic past that isn’t properly addressed within the narrative according to current standards of political correctness, this is not “erasure” or “bad representation.” Representation is achieved by people from marginalized positions having a platform to give voice to their stories and perspectives, and making these people afraid to use this platform because they’ve watched people like them being violently harassed for not tagging their smutfic with “romanticized depiction of a disability” (or what have you) isn’t conducive to actual representation.
An argument I see with disturbing frequency on fandom discourse blogs is something along the lines of “it’s okay to write fanfic with dark themes if it’s properly tagged, because this helps people understand that what they’re reading is problematic.” If you compare this to a similar statement meant to promote inclusive representation, such as “it’s okay to write fanfic because your voice is important and you deserve a chance to speak,” it becomes clear how stressful and confining moral prescriptivism is. Why does fiction – especially fanfiction, which is subcultural and countercultural – need to have to have some sort of moral in order to be allowed to exist?
It’s obvious to me that this whole mess is caught up in the sexist expectation that adult women should be the keepers of public morality. According to Tumblr-based fandom, which reflects the near-constant messaging present in many societies across the world, a woman stops being her own person and starts being a mother at around the age of 25. Once she’s crossed this threshold, her main purpose in life is to THINK OF THE CHIDLERN!!1! at all times. As a genderqueer nonbinary person, I understand that not everyone who writes and reads fanfic is “a woman,” but this doesn’t change the fact that fandom policing mirrors the purity politics that many women have to deal with in real life, according to which they’re only “allowed” to do something “selfish” if they can justify it as morally wholesome.
In any case, I still stand behind my main principle when it comes to fandom, which is that fictional characters are not real. Actual human beings, on the other hand, deserve not to be harassed for what they do for fun on the internet in their spare time.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 06:04 pm (UTC)WHERE IS THIS FIC THO CITE YOUR DAMN SOURCES... I mean... I'm just asking for a friend *cough*
Real talk - I love this. Seriously, you can't see it, but I'm slow clapping over here. You really nailed a lot of my issues with fandom nonsense, especially in fics.
AO3's tagging is so interesting and complex. I love that I'm able to search through a filter of post-canon E-rated stories containing BDSM, hurt/comfort, and humor. Where the fuck else can I do that? I've had people end up in my fics with zero knowledge of the fandom just because of the way I tagged my stories, which piqued their interest. Tags have always been double fold for me - it's a big ass neon billboard that either invites those who are into that thing or tells those clutching their pearls to fuck off.
I fucking loathe the tag policing, as it were. The whole "you need to tag this story for every possible trigger or else you clearly eat babies for breakfast." Ok so look, here's the other thing. There's a difference between being really uncomfortable with a thing and an actual, legit trigger. And I feel like so many people just ignore the first option and lump it all into the second one, because... I don't know why. For example, I don't like kids. I'm not into kidfic stories unless A) it's a canon character from the thing or B) it's some pre-canon stuff of the characters I like. Giving a ship a kid to raise? Yeah no, not my thing. I'm not having flashbacks or rocking myself in a corner if it shows up. At most, I kind of sigh and eyeroll and exit out of the story if it was left untagged. You know what I actually have a trigger around? Depictions of anything underwater. This is mostly a visual thing and less of a written thing for me, but if there's like, three pages of detail of a character drowning, I'm pretty sure that's going to trigger me. Do I except everyone to tag everything for underwater scenes or potential drowning? Wow, fuck no. It's not their responsibility to know what will upset me. I am responsible for myself. If a friend of mine on tumblr is posting a lot of pics underwater with whales without tags, I might nudge them and ask for tags on those posts so I don't have a panic attack scrolling through my dashboard. But again, how are they to know?
Some of the nitty gritty tags, like underage drinking, also make me sigh. Is it even a constant thing that happens in the story or is it like one scene out of 200k words? Even then, how necessary is it to have that specific of a tag? Will "Alcohol" not do? And even then, people shouldn't flip on their fandom police sirens, because tags aren't about whether or not you acknowledge something is "problematic" or not; it's about proper archiving and helping people pinpoint what they're looking for or staying the fuck away from something.
You know what I also fucking hate? How there needs to be an open fucking conversation about protection and birth control in every smut fic ever. Yes, consent is sexy and you can do it without interrupting the flow of the smut, but I've seen people break out their pitchforks and torches because a couple didn't use protection in a fic because It'S nOt ReAlIsTiC oR sAfE. Yeah and neither is the magic kink you're probably jerking off to in this either, pal, so maybe suspend your damn belief a little further. The one and only time I ever addressed something like that in a fic was Darkness/Starlight was because... they were banging a lot over the course of a lot of time and seeing how I was considering the consequences of everything and anything, it made sense. STILL. My fucking oneshot kink fics shouldn't be a goddamn manual for How To Do The Sexy Tiemz 101 (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
That said, damn I wish modern novels would have some sort of tagging system. I'd read more published erotica if that was the case. Yay for AO3 in that case. But fuck these policing assholes.
Also WOW this was a lot to unpack. Don't mind my rambling.no subject
Date: 2019-05-23 12:51 pm (UTC)ALSO.
What bothers me so much about these types of "standards" with tagging is the innate censorship that comes with it. And none of us are born fully Woke™. I had one perspective of shit when I was a teenager and that changed when I was in my 20s and guess what, that also changed now that I'm in my 30s. What ever happened to reading comprehension and critical discussion in academic settings? Or even with friends and family? It shouldn't be a creative writer's responsibility to conduct a damn dissertation at the beginning of their stories citing why and how elements of their narrative are problematic. I'm not here to babysit people and hold their hands; I'm here to tell a story. If we flagged all of our "problematic" content for the sake of not ruffling any feathers, we'd turn into some Pleasantville-esque society who can't think for themselves outside of being told what is right and wrong. Fuck that.
Then again, looping back to that one post you shared where one of the tumblr articles talked about growing up with religion and the fear of the devil or whatever, it doesn't surprise me that all this behavior in fandom mimics religion on a horrifyingly nauseating level.
Also, one of my best friends is in her 30s with kids and writes/reads dirty filthy smut without blinking an eye. Hate society's standards of How Mothers/Women Should Actually Behave ಠ_ಠ
no subject
Date: 2019-05-30 02:01 am (UTC)I remember, back when AO3 was new, and some people said that the (then very vigorous) debate about whether one should ever tag something was going to lead to a place where tagged content was eviscerated, and I remember not thinking it would, and boy, was I wrong.
I like tags. I like finding specific stuff in tags. I understand that "choose not to warn" is "read at your own risk."
Also when I was 17 I found my way into a LOT of shit I ought not have done (but years before that I was reading my mother's romance novels and I likely shouldn't have done that either), and it turns out that my fictional tastes are very definitely darker than my real life tastes, and that's ok, because I know the fucking difference.
And yes, A+ for not harassing humans.