Trigger Warnings

[QuillandInk]

So in my very first story(of a series), I added a couple of trigger warnings of some of the 'out of the norm' elements that I thought may upset some people... I have since then taken it down to rewrite the parts I have published so its no longer up, but I'm wondering if I should still include any in the future since I came across a few articles that allude to the fact that research shows trigger warnings are trivial.

I know you cannot please everyone, and that some people get triggered by just breathing in air, but I'm interested to hear about other people's thoughts and experiences on this, do you use them? Are they helpful? Do you think they blunt or stem backlash?

Here are two of the articles I have come across:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/trigger-warnings-research-shows-they-dont-work-might-hurt.html

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167702619827018?journalCode=cpxa

Edit: I missed another of my stories in which I have included trigger warnings.

 

[de_valmont]

I think they have the opposite of the desired effect often, means, they attract surfers indicating there is the really kinky stuff.

 

[RetroFan]

I will usually warn about fetish type subjects such as periods. Recently I neglected to mention in the first story in an Incest/Taboo series I have been writing that one of the female characters was menstruating. The readers weren't impressed, and said so in very strong words.

 

[Jada59]

I will usually warn about fetish type subjects such as periods. Recently I neglected to mention in the first story in an Incest/Taboo series I have been writing that one of the female characters was menstruating. The readers weren't impressed, and said so in very strong words.

I| mentioned my period in one of my stories and nobody said anything.

 

[de_valmont]

I| mentioned my period in one of my stories and nobody said anything.

I will read that story, nasty girl


I see it's a serious problem and I don't want to ridicule the question by my jokes, just hoped other (readers) would show more humor and thus tolerance.

 

[QuillandInk]

I read a story years ago on this site about a young man tutored in pleasures of the flesh by his mother and friends of the family, (I wish I could remember the name, it was set somewhere in the past where prophylactics were more primitive)

I remember one of the women the protagonist had sex with was on her period... there was no forwarning that I could remember, but I remember not being upset, just a tad surprised, so I quickly moved on.

For someone like me, very little upsets me if the story is well written. I like surprises and dislike it if any are given away by warnings. I try to minimize this in my warnings by adding a disclaimer that the following warnings may contain minor spoilers and then being as vague as I can about them and still get the pertinent info across.

 

[Blind_Justice]

It's a no-win scenario. Generally, the readers in Sci-Fi/Fantasy are a welcoming lot and you can get away without kink warnings - or so I thought. In "The temptation of Gheeran", the clearly bisexual male main character has sex with both girls and guys and no one batted an eye from what I could gather. The story got favorable scores and had no trigger warning. Same with "Dagger and Crystal" - the main character has an unfortunate encounter with a demon and earns himself a painful ass rape - no complaints, no obvious docking of points. I did warn that the sex would be on the rough side though.

Now, my latest, "Mud & Magic IV" HAS a disclaimer, cautioning that the story does feature a prominent bi-male angle and suddenly I do get docked points for having a bi-male angle. Weird world.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I generally lead off with a short trigger warning when necessary. To me, it simply gives a potential reader notice that this might include something they were not expecting. It's not so much a trigger warning (meaning proceeding further risks emotional grief) as a warning that the story might not be to the reader's taste.

For instance, my story Dianne was a first-person tale told by a sub about her dom. There was no violence, no humiliation, no bondage of any sort. It was clear that she really loved him. For that reason, after some debate on this forum, I submitted it in Romance, but included a fairly clear warning that was a romantic story, but lacked any roses-&-champagne elements and that it could equally well have gone into BDSM but it included no bondage, floggings, etc.

I still got comments like, "I know you warned us but I don't like this sort of thing and, even though it was well-written, I only gave you three stars." Another complained that people in it were, "stupid and mean." Obviously, the warning didn't keep them from reading stuff that upset them.

I still include them as a courtesy, but don't really think they have much effect.

On the other hand, as we don't get generally get complaints from people who turned to another tale as the result of a trigger warning warnings, it's hard to be sure.

 

[QuillandInk]

Very interesting, thank you all for the replies. It would seem these warnings yield mixed results.
In my mind, it leads me to believe that the articles I have read hold some truth after all. I will probably still give the warnings as a courtesy like TarnishedPenny said, but I will not think too hard about them anymore.
≧◡≦

 

[SimonDoom]

I use no trigger warnings or disclaimers. To me it's a form of infantilization of the writer-reader experience. As a reader, I sometimes like being surprised and shocked. I don't want to know what's coming around the bend. What I read cannot hurt me.

I'm not surprised that there is recent research suggesting that the premise of trigger warnings as helpful is wrong. My (tentative -- I don't know this to be true for certain and am open to persuasion to the opposite opinion) view is that practices like trigger warnings have the perverse effect of creating a culture in which being triggered is normalized and becomes more common, leading to more hurt and offended people, not fewer. I want no part of that.

As an author, I want to get the raw, true, unsoftened and unfiltered reaction of readers to my stories. I want to get reader reactions in all their variety, even the crazy and nasty ones. That may mean lower scores, but so be it. What does it really matter?

There's a further reason not to use warnings and disclaimers: you may broaden your reader's experience and expand the scope of what your reader is willing to read. Disclaimers ward off jittery readers and aid them in keeping to their cocoons. Let them face their monsters. Maybe they'll learn something. Maybe they'll broaden their horizons.

I think it would make sense to have story tags posted above and at the beginning of a story, or at least accessible in some way to the reader before he/she starts reading the story (without having to scroll to the last page), so the reader can make a more informed decision about whether the subject matter of the story is what they're looking for. I figure that with my title, category, and tags I'm giving the reader all the reader really needs to know before reading.

 

[QuillandInk]

I use no trigger warnings or disclaimers. To me it's a form of infantilization of the writer-reader experience. As a reader, I sometimes like being surprised and shocked. I don't want to know what's coming around the bend. What I read cannot hurt me.

I'm not surprised that there is recent research suggesting that the premise of trigger warnings as helpful is wrong. My (tentative -- I don't know this to be true for certain and am open to persuasion to the opposite opinion) view is that practices like trigger warnings have the perverse effect of creating a culture in which being triggered is normalized and becomes more common, leading to more hurt and offended people, not fewer. I want no part of that.

As an author, I want to get the raw, true, unsoftened and unfiltered reaction of readers to my stories. I want to get reader reactions in all their variety, even the crazy and nasty ones. That may mean lower scores, but so be it. What does it really matter?

There's a further reason not to use warnings and disclaimers: you may broaden your reader's experience and expand the scope of what your reader is willing to read. Disclaimers ward off jittery readers and aid them in keeping to their cocoons. Let them face their monsters. Maybe they'll learn something. Maybe they'll broaden their horizons.

I think it would make sense to have story tags posted above and at the beginning of a story, or at least accessible in some way to the reader before he/she starts reading the story (without having to scroll to the last page), so the reader can make a more informed decision about whether the subject matter of the story is what they're looking for. I figure that with my title, category, and tags I'm giving the reader all the reader really needs to know before reading.

Very thoughtful reply, thank you.

As a reader, I never needed these warnings, but when I started writing my stories, I took cues from authors I'm a fan of solely because they did.

I really like your idea of adding the tags at the top as well so that readers can find them faster and easier. This may very well be the compromise I was looking for.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I agree that tags up front would be a Very Good Thing. I think half of my TWs are intended to do that sort of thing.

 

[LexxRuthless]

I agree that tags up front would be a Very Good Thing. I think half of my TWs are intended to do that sort of thing.

I also agree that this would be very helpful--to readers as well as authors. Have you bounced this idea off of Manu?

 

[SimonDoom]

I also agree that this would be very helpful--to readers as well as authors. Have you bounced this idea off of Manu?

This idea has kicked around for a while and I'm pretty sure it's made it's way to Manu. Change comes slowly.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have two simple responses to trigger warnings. The first is that, if someone has genuine mental health issues that require them to avoid triggering content, then that someone should not read in categories likely to contain triggering content. There are plenty of categories that are safe, and plenty of writers who are safe, so don't read what is likely to trigger. That's surely a person's duty of care to themselves.

As writers, I think our duty of care extends to a responsible use of tags (being the available tool), and perhaps a conscious decision not to write triggering content. I for example, do not find non-consensual content in any way erotic, so I don't read it, and I don't write it. I don't avoid it because it triggers (I don't believe I have any triggers, unless they're positive Pavlov's Dogian ones), but because for me it's simply not erotic. The point is, Lit labels that content loud and clear, so I can easily avoid it. The same principle applies to anyone else.

My second response is to the nervous nellies out there who throw a tanty not because of triggers, but because they don't like something. My response to them is to grow up. I find it most ironic that tens of thousands of readers find it acceptable for Johnny to fuck his mom, but for Johnny to fuck his mom in the ass; oh my god, the sky has just fallen. But of course, there's the next ten-thousand who reckon anal sex with mom is the best thing ever, so trigger warnings for some become advertisements for others, so why bother?

I've recounted elsewhere my first encounter with the category police who freaked out when I dropped a bit of gay male incest into a chapter, unawares. After I subsequently took pity on the squeamish (I'll admit, it was a tad over the top, but hey, it's my story) by putting a warning in the comments of the previous chapter that nastiness lay ahead, the bastards still go ahead and read it then ping the chapter down to my lowest ever score. So I thought, "Fuck 'em, no more warnings for you lot."

I did, however, put a note at the beginning of my Arthurian thing that a fairly wide range of sexual proclivities were included, and if you don't like that content, don't start reading. There is one chapter, though, that is conspicuously lower score than the rest, so I suspect there was a bunch of readers who weren't paying attention.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I have two simple responses to trigger warnings. The first is that, if someone has genuine mental health issues that require them to avoid triggering content, then that someone should not read in categories likely to contain triggering content. There are plenty of categories that are safe, and plenty of writers who are safe, so don't read what is likely to trigger. That's surely a person's duty of care to themselves.

As writers, I think our duty of care extends to a responsible use of tags (being the available tool), and perhaps a conscious decision not to write triggering content. I for example, do not find non-consensual content in any way erotic, so I don't read it, and I don't write it. I don't avoid it because it triggers (I don't believe I have any triggers, unless they're positive Pavlov's Dogian ones), but because for me it's simply not erotic. The point is, Lit labels that content loud and clear, so I can easily avoid it. The same principle applies to anyone else.

My second response is to the nervous nellies out there who throw a tanty not because of triggers, but because they don't like something. My response to them is to grow up. I find it most ironic that tens of thousands of readers find it acceptable for Johnny to fuck his mom, but for Johnny to fuck his mom in the ass; oh my god, the sky has just fallen. But of course, there's the next ten-thousand who reckon anal sex with mom is the best thing ever, so trigger warnings for some become advertisements for others, so why bother?

I've recounted elsewhere my first encounter with the category police who freaked out when I dropped a bit of gay male incest into a chapter, unawares. After I subsequently took pity on the squeamish (I'll admit, it was a tad over the top, but hey, it's my story) by putting a warning in the comments of the previous chapter that nastiness lay ahead, the bastards still go ahead and read it then ping the chapter down to my lowest ever score. So I thought, "Fuck 'em, no more warnings for you lot."

I did, however, put a note at the beginning of my Arthurian thing that a fairly wide range of sexual proclivities were included, and if you don't like that content, don't start reading. There is one chapter, though, that is conspicuously lower score than the rest, so I suspect there was a bunch of readers who weren't paying attention.

Understand your thesis and agree. The I'm So Offended Olympics has really gone over the top.

On the other hand, we all have things we like better than others and things which we find distasteful. Giving a potential reader a heads-up for common turn-offs isn't a big deal, to my way of thinking.

 

[8letters]

I use no trigger warnings or disclaimers. To me it's a form of infantilization of the writer-reader experience. As a reader, I sometimes like being surprised and shocked. I don't want to know what's coming around the bend. What I read cannot hurt me.

I've thought about trigger warnings and tags a lot recently. My most recent story is a loving romance between a brother sister that happens to include spanking, light bondage, anal sex, S&M roleplaying, and D&S roleplaying. As a commenter put it, "Crazy how you make incest porn with brother-sister anal sex and bondage so gosh-darned wholesome! (And hot)"

A beta-reader suggested I put a warning at the beginning of the story. I personally don't like to read stories that have spanking and bondage. I thought about putting a vague warning like "Now for something completely different...", but what good would that do? If I put a warning like "This story contains spanking and bondage", I knew I'd lose a ton of readers who'd really enjoy the story. I ended up not putting any warning, and the story has been very popular. No one has left a negative comment about the spanking and bondage. In fact, I've gotten comments like, "I’m not into BDSM, but this story put a whole different spin on it."

OTOH, I've read stories that had some content in it that I wasn't expecting and which ruined the story for me. One story that stands out for me had the grandmother of the narrator attack him, knock him out and then have sex with him while he's recovering from the attack. I was repulsed by the story and was bothered by it well after I hit the back button.

I think it would make sense to have story tags posted above and at the beginning of a story, or at least accessible in some way to the reader before he/she starts reading the story (without having to scroll to the last page), so the reader can make a more informed decision about whether the subject matter of the story is what they're looking for. I figure that with my title, category, and tags I'm giving the reader all the reader really needs to know before reading.

The tags on my story don't really tell the reader much beyond the title and category. Putting them above or at the beginning of the story would be a waste of pixels. In my latest story, the anal sex was a big plot twist, and I wouldn't have wanted the reader to know it was coming. If the tags were above or at the beginning of the story, I wouldn't have included "anal" in my story tags.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

JMO I look at warnings like mom looked at advise...

Those who heed it don't need it. Those who need it won't heed it. -Lisa's mom

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[yukonnights]

Laurel added a trigger warning on only one occasion—a bit of non-consent in a story intended as humorous satire. I included another on my own in a story that had a dialogue mention of a past beating along with description of bruising evidence of a severe, brutal and emotionally hurtful element. I mention that only to say; It seems that non-consent elements might be the one thing that deserve mention. (ETA: A mention of a past rape/sexual abuse might warrant one too.)

However, I have pretty much settled on a brief intro which hopefully indicates enough about where the story will go w/o giving it away. I also manually include the search Tags I've used in that intro. In my view, it is these short one or two word tags that can provide the info the reader needs to make a decision. (Since the tags are put in by me, I can include more than the 10 or so that the submission process allows if need be or desired.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

So in my very first story(of a series), I added a couple of trigger warnings of some of the 'out of the norm' elements that I thought may upset some people... I have since then taken it down to rewrite the parts I have published so its no longer up, but I'm wondering if I should still include any in the future since I came across a few articles that allude to the fact that research shows trigger warnings are trivial.

I know you cannot please everyone, and that some people get triggered by just breathing in air, but I'm interested to hear about other people's thoughts and experiences on this, do you use them? Are they helpful? Do you think they blunt or stem backlash?

Some of the discussion here suggests that people are unclear about what a "trigger warning" is, so let's recap:

"Trigger warning" is specifically about PTSD and things with a high risk of provoking PTSD flashbacks. Content like rape, abusive relationships, etc.

When I went to a stage show as a kid, I remember a notice at the theatre along the lines of "the discharge of a firearm in Act 3 will be accompanied by a loud noise". That's a trigger warning, even though I don't think the terminology had been invented yet.

It does not mean "anything that some reader might dislike". It also doesn't mean "anything that might provoke reader backlash". Some people don't want to read about menstruation or gay sex or whatever, but these are unlikely to be PTSD related. You still have the option of giving a content note for that kind of material if you think it's worth doing, but that's not a "trigger warning" per se.

When people use "trigger warning" to mean "anything at all that a reader might dislike", that's either ignorance of what TWs are and why they exist, or a bad-faith debating tactic to make TWs seem absurd by presenting them as something they're not.

https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/trigger-warnings-research-shows-they-dont-work-might-hurt.html

Note that this article has not yet been peer reviewed.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2167702619827018?journalCode=cpxa

I don't have access to the full article text, so I'm unable to check the methods in detail. I've been around long enough to see plenty of papers where the abstract didn't accurately represent the contents.

But from what I can tell, both these papers seem to use a similar method: warn some subjects but not others that they're about to encounter potentially triggering material, then expose everybody to that material.

Analogy for that approach:

1. Recruit a bunch of people with peanut allergies.
2. Warn some subjects, but not others, that I'm about to expose them to peanuts.
3. Expose everybody to peanuts and observe the results.
4. Announce that peanut warnings are useless because they don't reduce the frequency or severity of allergic reactions in people who eat peanuts.

It should be obvious that this is missing the point. The purpose of such warnings is to let people make choices about whether/when to be exposed to something that might cause them problems. Of course it's not going to help when the experimental design removes such choices from consideration.

Payton Jones (author of the first-linked study) has argued that avoiding triggering material is harmful and that being exposed to trauma cues is an important part of recovery from PTSD. For all I know that could be true, but there's still a vast difference between letting people choose when they're ready for that exposure, and just springing it on them (with or without a TW) at a time when they're not ready for it.

If I include a TW, then somebody with PTSD can make decisions like "I'm going to hold off on reading this until tomorrow when I'm in a better place for it" - something which doesn't seem to be covered by either of these studies, but which seems to be pretty important to several of the PTSD folk I've seen responding to it. Or, if they've read all the research and decided that the healthiest thing for them is to ignore TWs and plow through, taking the exposure as it comes, they still have the option to do that.

As far as I know, none of us here are mental health professionals. It's monumental hubris for any of us to be saying "I read a couple of papers on the internet* so I know what's best for PTSD patients". Give people the information to make their own choices about what's good for them, eh?

*or more often, "I read some random journalist's simplified interpretation of a complex scientific paper"...

 

[Bramblethorn]

I have two simple responses to trigger warnings. The first is that, if someone has genuine mental health issues that require them to avoid triggering content, then that someone should not read in categories likely to contain triggering content. There are plenty of categories that are safe, and plenty of writers who are safe, so don't read what is likely to trigger. That's surely a person's duty of care to themselves.

Yeah, some categories are in themselves TWs; if a story is posted in NC/R that should be all the warning anybody needs that it has nonconsensual content. (Excepting when somebody links to the story in Story Feedback etc. and asks people to read and comment without mentioning the category.)

But how does a reader identify who's going to be a "safe writer"? I write a lot of gentle, consensual stuff, and for most readers that's going to be their first impression of me. But I also write horror, including one piece that pushes the boundaries of the "no snuff" rule and which isn't posted under Erotic Horror. That's the sort of thing where a content warning seems in order.

 

[SamScribble]

People who need trigger warnings shouldn't be visiting sites like this.

 

[ElectricBlue]

But how does a reader identify who's going to be a "safe writer"? I write a lot of gentle, consensual stuff, and for most readers that's going to be their first impression of me. But I also write horror, including one piece that pushes the boundaries of the "no snuff" rule and which isn't posted under Erotic Horror. That's the sort of thing where a content warning seems in order.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you place an extreme horror story in EH, as a fundamental courtesy to readers? And given that you didn't, did you put a content warning up front? I assume you did.

I think we agree that the bulk of what's going in here isn't about trigger warnings at all, it's about squicks, likes and dislikes; which is my second response category, "grow up."

 

[ElectricBlue]

OTOH, I've read stories that had some content in it that I wasn't expecting and which ruined the story for me. One story that stands out for me had the grandmother of the narrator attack him, knock him out and then have sex with him while he's recovering from the attack. I was repulsed by the story and was bothered by it well after I hit the back button.

The tags on my story don't really tell the reader much beyond the title and category. Putting them above or at the beginning of the story would be a waste of pixels. In my latest story, the anal sex was a big plot twist, and I wouldn't have wanted the reader to know it was coming. If the tags were above or at the beginning of the story, I wouldn't have included "anal" in my story tags.

So you're quite happy to run a double standard, then.

You've complained before, several times, about getting hi-jacked with content you don't like, but you'll hi-jack readers with content they might not like. Good for you.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Understand your thesis and agree. The I'm So Offended Olympics has really gone over the top.

On the other hand, we all have things we like better than others and things which we find distasteful. Giving a potential reader a heads-up for common turn-offs isn't a big deal, to my way of thinking.

If readers are that precious, I expect them to use tags or the reverse button (with no vote and no comment). I'm not their nanny, they need to take responsibility for what they read. I've got zero tolerance for snow-flakes.

There are people here who'd tremble stepping over a marshmallow, seriously .