hd_writers | Let's Talk About Warnings

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Let's Talk About Warnings

First of all, we’d like to apologise for part of yesterday’s post with Kamerreon’s Advice on Writing. The post was copied in full (with permission from the original poster), including the suggestion that slash and femslash are things that should be warned for. We understand that this is offensive, and apologise whole-heartedly to those who were offended. We’d also like to offer this link to explain why, for those for whom it maybe hasn’t been an issue, and don’t understand why it should be.
+ Why warning for slash or femslash is offensive: "Normal stories" vs. slash

At the time of posting this, the original post is still in place. The mods are discussing whether to edit the post to remove issues of sexuality from the warnings section (which entails censoring someone’s work without discussing the changes with them, which we can’t do as she has left fandom and we have no way to contact her), and deleting the post in it’s entirety (which entails deleting the original discussion, as well as the parts of the post that were useful). This decision can’t be made straight away as there are quite a number of mods and we are in different timezones, which delays things, rather. But we want you to know that we are addressing it.

Comments in the post have raised some really good points about warnings, specifically about what to warn for and how. There are no hard and fast rules about this; warning for rape, chan, and character death tend to be standard for those who choose to warn, but not everyone does. We aren’t looking to set any specific guidelines here, but this seems like a really good opportunity to talk about it.

There are a whole lot of things to say about warnings. Here are a few thoughts to get you started:
Why warn? Some people dislike being warned at all, as it can spoil a really fantastic plot twist. Other people would really prefer not to be subjected to an entirely avoidable bout of PTSD.
+ Warnings - The Dead Tree Remix
+ In Defence of Author Control
+ Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay (Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.)
+ I'm no longer a victim, so don't thread me like one!
+ Sorry, but I have to decline

Is "Warning" the best way to describe what we’re doing? What are the alternatives? What are the pros and cons?
+ A shift in usage - Content tags instead of warnings?
+ Warnings vs Trigger Alerts

Here are a few questions to get you started: How do you use warnings? Trigger and/or squick avoidance, content tags, or some combination of the two? Which warnings do you look for and which ones do you expect? Are any of them mandatory or is “choose not to warn” an acceptable creative choice for you? Do you have any HP-specific warnings? Any ship-specific warnings? Are they the same for fic you’re writing as they are for fic you read? Do you have a warnings policy?

For anyone looking for further reading, Metafandom have a Warnings tag at Delicious, which is where some of these links have come from.

Please be aware that there may be triggery comments, both here and at the links.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't think there's any question that Kamerreon was just trying to be helpful. It's just that lumping in sexuality with incest and bestiality, which is what that list does, goves a really unpleasant message.

Surely the pairing indicates whether it is slash or het? Someone who reads a Snarry fic then gets pissy that there wasn't a warning for slash... well, I would be judging them hard. Warning for slash may be easier, but is it right?

On a personal level, that's about where I sit, too. But there are wider issues. Where you are talking about squicks and triggers, you're talking about things that are a general part of life. You are also approaching it from the default position of not haveing major issues with these things. Someone who spent their entire childhood being abused may be sent off into days worth of trauma response by something that for you or I is just a case of "I don't want to read that".

I'm not advocating warning for bees because someone was stung by one once (I think someone above has used that example), because hey, that's life. But a little respect for people who've been traumatised never goes amiss.

As you say, whiteout FTW. :o)

Some of it is not so much whether to warn as what to warn for and how. And as loing as there is no Fandom Gold Standard (which there never will be, or even can be, because of how fandom is) people are goin to differences of opinion. :o)

I am totally an advocate of whiteout, myself!

The issue here on warning for slash and het is that we are effectively putting sex together with things like bestiality and incest, and saying that they are all objectionable. I get not wanting to read het, or slash, or certain pairings, but that is what the "Pairings" part of the header is for. If you (general you) hate slash, don't read a Harry/Ron fic.

I'm increasingly leaning toward having two sections, where one would warn for underage, rape, incest sort of thing, and and put everything else under 'Content' so a reader knows what they're getting into without there being that implicit "This stuff is baaadd".

Thanks. :o)

I am all about giving people options. That's why I love the whiteout. It lets people choose how much they want to know. Yeah, I think gore should be a warning, too, actually. And an actual warning, rather than 'Content' which is a distinction that I like more the more I talk about it.

I get what you're saying. I just think it's easy to say that when it's not you that's being warned for. That's where the objection is coming from. Queer people in their real lives are often treated as something objectionable, so they object to a classification that suggests it in fandom.

I increasingly think that the real problem is the label "Warning". Some things do need to be warned for, e.g. underrage sex, because in Australia you can actually be arrested for reading it. Most thing are just a question of preference, though, so a label like "Content" would solve it neatly.

(reply from suspended user)

Nothing that we link or post here is intended as any kind of Gold Standard, we're just trying to put things out there, and anyone can post their own links. There are actually a couple of other guides around that I must link to as well.

It would be so great if we could actually change things a bit. I've changed the header at

hds_beltane to include warnings with whiteout and a separate line for 'Notes'. It'll be interesting to see how people respond to that.

Sorry for the repeated edits. It takes a special kind of dumb to undo one's own edit, and apparently I have it!

Edited 2011-04-02 13:35 (UTC)

You know, I've always wondered about warning for vomit. Do you mean like . . . people who find vomit to be sexually stimulating? (Let me just insert a huge *SHIVER* here, because . . . just ew . . . ) Or if someone sicks up in a fic just a course of having too much to drink or whatever, does that or should that require a warning? Sorry to get all OT . . .

Yes, I think I like the idea of using the word "Content" rather than "Warning."

I also, personally, don't need warnings. For anything. If I encounter something that truly squicks me -- and, yes, I have squicks, mostly bodily functions squicks -- then I either choose to continue reading or I choose not to. It's really that simple. And you know? I have triggery things as part of my life experiences, but I don't feel the need to be warned for them.

Of course just because I don't need warnings doesn't mean someone else won't. It's okay to need warnings, but I think if you're so sensitive that you need a ridiculous level of warnings, then you ought to bear that responsibility yourself (again, see warning for bees or the word rape)

I hadn't thought of the whiteout technique, but it makes a ton of sense. Of course it only works with people who have white as their reading background; I myself happen to have black.

As a het writer, I have to say that I never noticed het writers being vociferous about being squicked about slash. That said, I hang with open-minded, accepting folk. I don't have time or patience for homophobia or intolerance of any kind, and the het writers I've always hung with either also write slash (like I do) or are completely slash-friendly.

I will say that I have personally (not heard about, but personally) encountered female male/male slash writers who describe female genitalia as gross, yucky, disgusting, and icky to write about. I find this to be a subtle form of self-loathing and misogyny, and I don't think it's healthy. I think it's 1000 percent totally fine to prefer slash over het as erotica; there's entirely nothing wrong with that. But to describe women as icky, gross, disgusting, etc, isn't any better than homophobic het writers who are intolerant toward queers or anyone in the LGBTQ community. Neither are acceptable, IMO.

It's a peeve of mine, admittedly. I also don't think that preferring het fic to slash fic implies homophobia or intolerance. As a heterosexual female myself, yeah, I want to read the boy/girl stuff too. By that I mean male/female, not boy/girl as in kids.

Actually, the way most people do it is to make the text of the warnings white and also highlight those words white, so the background of the page doesn't matter. I guess you could make the warnings any color you wanted, as long as you made the highlight color match. I don't know the code for that offhand, but I've seen it posted in a lot of places. :-)

The true glory of the whiteout strip when used correctly is that it sets both the text AND the background to white, regardless of the standard layout.

* Insert Warnings Here *

I just posted the code in reply to that comment, if you're after it. :o)

Now this is interesting. It worked correctly when I previewed. Hmm.

I thought a lot about what you said re: getting annoying reviews and I just wanted to offer another POV. I think it's easy to delete a stupid review, either from your inbox or from ff.net (at least I know at Skyehawke you can delete reviews; I personally don't delete reviews, but I know it's possible). But it's not easy for our LBGTQ brothers and sisters to gain tolerance. A way we can help increase tolerance for the LGBTQ community is to not feed into homophobia. Warning for slash and femslash implies that there is something deviant about the acts, when really they are natural, normal expressions of love, lust, whatever. They're no more or less normal than het. We can help to build tolerance by refusing to play party to homophobia. I think that is worth putting up with the occasional ridiculous review from someone who is intolerant. Maybe it's annoying to get those kind of reviews, but it's really way more annoying to be gay or bi or transsexual and have to deal with real, in-your-face, daily intolerance, hatred, and misrepresentation. If we're going to dip into LGBTQ for erotic purposes -- especially if we, the writers, are straight (which not all are, of course) -- then I think we owe the LBGTQ communities the courtesy of not apologizing for representing their very normal sexual behavior. The LGBTQ community, I think, is not here for our enjoyment or for titillation purposes; they're our fellow human beings who deserve to be appreciated and protected, and one very small way we can help to do that is to reconsider whether "slash" or "femslash" is a deviance that needs warnings. Yeah, we may have to deal with the occasional stupid review, but it sure beats having to live a life where we're constantly being demonized for being born queer or transsexual. Truly, this is just food for thought -- I'm not trying to jump your shit, I promise. Hopefully it won't be taken that way :)

Does the whiteout code work with other than white backgrounds? My reading background happens to be black (I don't need warnings, though). I'm just curious.

I think that leaving the post up is appropriate. It shows the entire conversation in context, and a lot of excellent conversation has ensued.

It's supposed to. It seems to have failed utterly when I posted it in reply to you. The idea is that it manually turns the tagged section to a white background with white text, so it shouldn't matter what your background is, because the code overwrites it.

It's just something that I personally never want to read about in detail. I can handle "he was sick", but any more detail than that and I'll really wish I hadn't read and possibly not be able to eat for the rest of the day. But it's a quirk that's specific enough to me that I wouldn't go off in a rage at the writer for not warning. I appreciate the warning very much, but I don't think someone's a jerk for not including it.

agreed! Seriously, if someone clicks on a story that has a pairing stated, they should know what they are getting into. And usually authors put the pairing in their summary or info in the beginning of the post. Like Snape/Harry or HPDM. I mean, it's pretty clear who's paired with who in that story. If someone ignores that and then gets pissed because there was no "warning for slash", then that's their problem. I don't think that warning for slash is right, because het stories don't get warnings. Why should slash?

I've had a bit of a back-and-forth with one of my friends/betas on the warn/no warning issue, just the other day.

While it has never bothered me, I get that there are a surprising (to me) number of people who feel they absolutely need to be warned for bottom/top positions. I don't personally feel the position someone takes sexually has anything at all to do with their personality.

But.

I've taken to using a Warnings/Contains line in my fic header. Because I've long-since realised that what might scare one person away might very well entice another (for instance, I wrote for a fest where non-con was a common theme, and often required by the prompts). After the discussion with my beta, where I listed "bottoming from the top" in the same warnings/contains line as who was actually the top and bottom, we had a bit of a debate as to what qualified for that field.

I eventually took out the 'bottoming from the top' mention, and stated 'no real warnings (but bottom!character, if you're concerned with that sort of thing)'. I do know one person (not in this fandom) who does mind the BftT scenario, but I suppose it's not a common squick.

TL;DR

Basically, I'm torn. I'm not triggered by anything (that I'm aware of), and my list of squicks at this point is fairly small and constantly shrinking. But I have close friends who are triggered by things, some of which I write about, so I try to include. But on the other hand... What to do about things that are potentially triggery, but are also plot twists and such?

Honestly, I think I might just scrap "warnings/contains" for "contains" from this point on. But... not slash/het/femmeslash, because that should be in the pairings line (which is also in my post title), and I in no way think any of those should be "warned" for. Exception being on my masterlist, which is multi-fandom--so far, femmeslash is mentioned, but only because one of the characters has a name that is not immediately clear as to gender of the character).

A+++++++++++++

...be my friend? XD

I will say that I have personally (not heard about, but personally) encountered female male/male slash writers who describe female genitalia as gross, yucky, disgusting, and icky to write about. I find this to be a subtle form of self-loathing and misogyny, and I don't think it's healthy. I think it's 1000 percent totally fine to prefer slash over het as erotica; there's entirely nothing wrong with that. But to describe women as icky, gross, disgusting, etc, isn't any better than homophobic het writers who are intolerant toward queers or anyone in the LGBTQ community. Neither are acceptable, IMO.

I completely agree! Describing women in that way is unhealthy and rather childish.

I hear you 100% concerning that H/G thing. Not that I ever received these reviews, but I see people leave them and feel this way.

Do we get rid of the word 'warnings' altogether because of the negative implication in that term? Because someone somewhere could get offended that you felt the need to warn for watersports when it's something they engage in regularly and don't like the negative implication of what they consider a sexually gratifying act?

THANK YOU. My thoughts exactly - hell, everything will piss off anyone in the world! Isn't it each our job in life to get over it? The internet is a place full of potentially disturbing content. If you're sensitive, please don't go there.

We all know what the "warning" section in headers stands for, and plucking apart the WORD is, in my opinion, just petty. I can warn my friend for bad weather or their mum's call, if I feel it's appropriate - does that demonize the occurrence itself? Of course not.

I hold this whole issue very Kant-ian, meaning: the intent weighs more than the outcome. If people come here to read bad faith into a post created as a writing outline - then all I can do is shake my head. Defending your rights is a good thing, and I can see that there is still a lot of misplaced homophobia in this world. But reading it into everything and accusing people who clearly did not advertise it - that's just completely out of place.

Get rid of the warnings label entirely and say 'contains' instead?

You know, I'm not the biggest fan of avoiding to call things by their name for the sake of political correctness. But if that's what it takes, maybe it's the best way indeed.

There's a reason I don't post on ffnet, and the age and sensitivity of the readers is one. I came from a fandom (pre internet) that didn't use warnings (though all the fic was slash, so that problem never came up), and it was the job of the editor of the zine, or the person passing on the story to describe the outline the content ("I know you don't like deathfic, so don't read this one.")

My real problem with warnings is that quite a lot of my work has a 'twist' that a warning would telegraph. I can cover this by warning for 'apparent death', or 'implied rape' but I still feel that I'm shortchanging the reader of the surprise ending.

Whiteout (at least on the LJ post) seems to be the only solution.

either that or I just label everything 'mindfuck'.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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Let's Talk About Warnings

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