Trigger Warnings

[SimonDoom]

Some day this site needs to offer the option of user customized home pages, which could weed out certain stories using tags or such. I would be happy to go along with that. But the idea of flagging all potentially objectionable content in a preface sticks in my craw. I'm just old school. Or perhaps just old.

 

[KeithD]

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

Oh, for something over a decade on a regular basis.

 

[KeithD]

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

I agree, with the upshot being it's their problem, unless it isn't reflected in the category, title, descriptor, or tags (and it's the Web site's problem that the tags are located at the end. So are the comments, where warning discussion could be given by readers, if they wish).

 

[ChasingAnna]

Use tags. Anything more than that is unnecessary.

 

[QuillandInk]

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.

Interesting, it seems I have confused TW with content warnings. Thanks for the clarification.

To be fair, it seems like a common mistake...my American friends use the term 'getting triggered' a lot during our online activities together (mostly playing Eve Online).

I've slept on this and decided I will be including my tags in my author's notes like SimonDoom first suggested. Now moving on...

 

[8letters]

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.

It's a complicated topic. It'd be nice if "Something Were Done", but it's not obvious what the "Something" should be.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

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.



Note that this article has not yet been peer reviewed.



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"...

While you are correct in a technical sense, I fear you are going to be playing the part of Sisyphus...

Because (1) people do not use terms correctly, (2) people who do care can't reliably distinguish something that might trigger a PTSD episode from a "I'm pissed episode" (3) people game the system to achieve individual goals.

In the US municipalities and universities are writing ridiculous rules, rules that cannot be universalized. TWs have become like "affirmative action" something that most people agree with in principle. But the title has become so tarnished by game players and nay-sayers that far fewer agree with the concept when referred to by name.

(This is a serious question: beyond the obvious situation of being a victim of a violent and or criminal act, what sort of story element can one have (on Lit and within the rules) that could trigger a PTSD episode? I could quote 30 wrong examples from feedback and PMs.)

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[SimonDoom]

Do people really get triggered by reading stories? Is that a real thing? I understand getting triggered by the sound of a gunshot in a play, or watching a rape scene in a movie. But in the case of a story you can always stop reading before getting far into the bad part. Is this something that really happens?

Supposing it does happen, who among us is qualified to know what sort of material might be triggering and how to provide a warning? I don't.

99% of what we're talking about here is not warnings to prevent being triggered. It's warnings to prevent people getting squicked or offended. That's something different. Beyond putting my story in the right category and assigning it the correct tags, I'm not sure I feel much of a duty to do more. What 8Letters makes sense to me -- doing so will, right off the bat, weed out readers, some of whom might otherwise find they liked something they thought they might not.

 

[KeithD]

I think it's a generational thing and that, yes, we've been through the "helicopter parent" world long enough that many younger people now are clueless about personal responsibility and expect the world to cater to and protect them from everything they individually get "hangnail" hurt over. Yes, I see it in action here on Literotica. It occurs also in the extent they expect the world (and Internet sites) to reorder themselves to personal whim.

 

[Areala-chan]

I included a short note at the start of "Crash Into Me" that the story involves an amputee as a main character, but is not a fetish piece. I did this as a courtesy to people who WERE looking for amputation fetish stories so they didn't waste their time on a work that wouldn't please them (since I'd used 'amputee' as one of the tags), and to those who didn't want a story involving a character with a missing limb. To me, it was just common courtesy.

On the other hand, if the story's in "Incest/Taboo", contains sex between family members, and that somehow upsets a reader, then their inability to understand the internet isn't my problem.

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

Someone suggested adding the tags you used at the start of your story, which I think was a great idea. I'll definitely be stealing that for future submissions. However, it made me think of something else too: how about a quick synopsis at the start of the story along with the tags? Not of the whole story of course, but similar to what you might find on the back of a book. Just a few sentences describing what kind of story it is so the reader can see at a glance if this is something they want to read or not. Of course, this will also prevent readers from discovering new things they didn't think they'd enjoy before like Simon mentioned (I think it was him, anyway). Still, it might help people decide if the story is for them or not before they start reading and prevent unpleasant surprises (and the accompanying bad votes).

 

[8letters]

99% of what we're talking about here is not warnings to prevent being triggered. It's warnings to prevent people getting squicked or offended. That's something different. Beyond putting my story in the right category and assigning it the correct tags, I'm not sure I feel much of a duty to do more. What 8Letters makes sense to me -- doing so will, right off the bat, weed out readers, some of whom might otherwise find they liked something they thought they might not.

My story is an unusual situation in that it's a I/T story with light bondage and spanking for I/T readers who don't like bondage and/or spanking. If I had told them up front that that it had light bondage and spanking, they wouldn't have read the story. But the vast majority of the readers have enjoyed the story. And I've not gotten any negative comments about the light bondage and spanking.

But let's say I write another I/T story that does have the type of spanking and bondage that the majority of I/T readers don't like. If I know that the majority of the readers of my story are going to get squicked or offended, wouldn't the polite thing to do is to warn those type of readers off? Maybe only a small part of the I/T readership is going to like that kind of story, but the I/T readership is so vast that that's still a lot of readers.

There's a lot of story types that don't have a natural home. If I put the above story in I/T, then most of the readers are going to be upset about the BDSM. If I post the story in BDSM, most of the readers are going to be upset about the incest. And a BDSM I/T category is not going to happen.

To me, it's a complicated topic with no clear answer.

 

[KeithD]

Someone suggested adding the tags you used at the start of your story, which I think was a great idea. I'll definitely be stealing that for future submissions. However, it made me think of something else too: how about a quick synopsis at the start of the story along with the tags? Not of the whole story of course, but similar to what you might find on the back of a book. Just a few sentences describing what kind of story it is so the reader can see at a glance if this is something they want to read or not. Of course, this will also prevent readers from discovering new things they didn't think they'd enjoy before like Simon mentioned (I think it was him, anyway). Still, it might help people decide if the story is for them or not before they start reading and prevent unpleasant surprises (and the accompanying bad votes).

I prefer the element of surprise, a standard element of short stories, to remain in my stories. And I'm probably not needing the type of reader who requires babysitting. The ideas seem possibilities for less-assured writers, though.

 

[SimonDoom]

My story is an unusual situation in that it's a I/T story with light bondage and spanking for I/T readers who don't like bondage and/or spanking. If I had told them up front that that it had light bondage and spanking, they wouldn't have read the story. But the vast majority of the readers have enjoyed the story. And I've not gotten any negative comments about the light bondage and spanking.

But let's say I write another I/T story that does have the type of spanking and bondage that the majority of I/T readers don't like. If I know that the majority of the readers of my story are going to get squicked or offended, wouldn't the polite thing to do is to warn those type of readers off? Maybe only a small part of the I/T readership is going to like that kind of story, but the I/T readership is so vast that that's still a lot of readers.

There's a lot of story types that don't have a natural home. If I put the above story in I/T, then most of the readers are going to be upset about the BDSM. If I post the story in BDSM, most of the readers are going to be upset about the incest. And a BDSM I/T category is not going to happen.

To me, it's a complicated topic with no clear answer.

I don't think there's one answer for everyone. My first post was probably a bit too strident. I'm skeptical about this as a practice but I'm not going to disparage someone for making a different choice. I've consistently maintained that authors should feel free to do what they feel is best to connect with their readers and if they think this is best then they should go ahead.

 

[Bramblethorn]

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

People with PTSD have as much right as anybody else to enjoy erotica.

 

[Bramblethorn]

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.

It's in Text With Audio, and AFAIK the multi-media categories always trump the subject-matter categories. And yes, I included a note at the beginning: "Consider it an Erotic Horror piece, with all that implies."

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."

Yep. And usually I'm a descriptivist where language is concerned: I accept that language evolves and words don't have to mean what they used to mean. But where "trigger warning" is concerned, I push back more than usual against that blurring of terminology, because it seems to come from a deliberate attempt to obscure meaning and feed the trendy-but-bullshit narrative of "modern kids are über-sensitive snowflakes who get offended by the tiniest thing, not like back in my day".

(Nobody better mention the generations who were offended by the idea of drinking from the same water fountain as a black person, or seeing two people of the same sex kiss in public, or who get outraged by the burning of a piece of fabric printed with a specific pattern on it...)

 

[BuckyDuckman]

If the title or the short blurb doesn't give away material that some people find offensive, I'll reveal it at the beginning. Those who seek those things probably will be more likely to read the story. Those who don't want to read about those things will hopefully move on. To me, doesn't hurt the story either way.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(This is a serious question: beyond the obvious situation of being a victim of a violent and or criminal act, what sort of story element can one have (on Lit and within the rules) that could trigger a PTSD episode? I could quote 30 wrong examples from feedback and PMs.)

Some other examples, not exhaustive, of subject matter where I would consider giving a TW:

Death of a child (accidental/illness/etc.)
Suicide/self-harm
Racist/homophobic/misogynistic/transphobic abuse
Eating disorders

This is not to say that I'd always TW for any mention of these things - indeed, people who've read my stories will know that I've used a couple of these themes without TWs. It depends on the nature of the content, and on its context. Writing "Bob had a little brother who died of measles at age six" is not going to be as much of an issue as if I introduce the little brother as a character, let readers get to relate to him, and then unexpectedly kill him off.

Do people really get triggered by reading stories? Is that a real thing?

Yep, it happens. If we can believe that people get aroused by our stories, is it really such a stretch to think that we can create other emotions too?

I understand getting triggered by the sound of a gunshot in a play, or watching a rape scene in a movie. But in the case of a story you can always stop reading before getting far into the bad part.

Depending on how it's presented, it's quite possible that the reader will not realise that a story is going to contain triggering content until they encounter that content, at which point it's too late.

Supposing it does happen, who among us is qualified to know what sort of material might be triggering and how to provide a warning? I don't.

Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. It's impossible to predict everything that might be triggering - some triggers can be as innocuous as "that song that was playing when X happened". But we don't need to be qualified psychiatrists to understand that (e.g.) a lot of people have had brushes with suicide and it has high potential to be upsetting.

99% of what we're talking about here is not warnings to prevent being triggered. It's warnings to prevent people getting squicked or offended. That's something different.

It is indeed, and the distinction is important.

 

[Hypoxia]

I post the tags in my author's intro and advise any who don't like-em to stop reading.

 

[ElectricBlue]

99% of what we're talking about here is not warnings to prevent being triggered. It's warnings to prevent people getting squicked or offended. That's something different.

It is indeed, and the distinction is important.

Agree this, it's a very important distinction; and in nearly every case I've seen talked about, it's the, "Oh, but I don't like that" brigade making all the noise. My eternal response to them is, fuck off, grow up.

But I'm also aware of genuine trigger situations and the damage that can be done, and my response to that is to not write "obvious triggering content". In my Arthurian yarn I toyed for about five seconds writing one character with anorexia, and in the sixth second thought, "I know nothing about that;" and in the seventh second, "How is that in the slightest a subject for erotica?" My character ended up written as someone with a mental illness of some undefined nature, but I hope I wrote her with empathy and with kind people to care for her.

Having some awareness of the power of erotica to dig deep into the psyche is important, I think - as Bramblethorn rightly says, people get aroused, so why wouldn't some people get triggered? Words can be powerful things, use them wisely, I reckon.

 

[Emirus]

Any point in triggers

In a recent story, set in the 1980’s, I put in the prologue an explanation to the effect I know cellphones, as we know them, didn’t exist in the 1980’s but I needed it for the plot and I wanted to pre-empt anyone saying it was wrong. As soon as it was published there was a comment that it was a good story and they only had one problem. There were no cellphones in the 1980’s! As a result of which they had marked the story down.

There are also the readers who, no matter what warnings you put in, will still read the story and be (deliberately) offended.

 

[RetroFan]

In a recent story, set in the 1980’s, I put in the prologue an explanation to the effect I know cellphones, as we know them, didn’t exist in the 1980’s but I needed it for the plot and I wanted to pre-empt anyone saying it was wrong. As soon as it was published there was a comment that it was a good story and they only had one problem. There were no cellphones in the 1980’s! As a result of which they had marked the story down.

There are also the readers who, no matter what warnings you put in, will still read the story and be (deliberately) offended.

Out of curiosity as an author who mainly writes stories set in the past, how did the cell phone fit into the plot of your story set in the 1980s? In some stories I have written set in the late 1980s and early 1990s there have been cell phones, but I have mentioned how big and bulky they were, to make the story authentic. And while you could include such a phone in a story set in 1988, there's no way it would work in a story set in 1981.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Out of curiosity as an author who mainly writes stories set in the past, how did the cell phone fit into the plot of your story set in the 1980s? In some stories I have written set in the late 1980s and early 1990s there have been cell phones, but I have mentioned how big and bulky they were, to make the story authentic. And while you could include such a phone in a story set in 1988, there's no way it would work in a story set in 1981.

Yes, same question from me. If you need a cell phone for a plot line, but they've not been invented yet, then your story line contains an anachronism. That for me is one of the fastest ways to kick me out of a story.

It would be like people moaning that the Apollo 11 TV coverage wasn't in colour and wasn't wide screen with Dolby Surround.

 

[Hypoxia]

I've started period pieces noting just what wasn't available then. "Let us set the scene. The time and place: far away and long ago (yes, some decades back), before internets, cell-phones, self-esteem, AIDS, safety regulations, and an all-volunteer US military..." Yes, a brief data-dump. Now Ron can ride his 49cc Honda moped under suburban Los Angeles smogberry trees without a helmet. A gallon of premium or a pack of Camels are 20 cents at a gas station; condoms cost a quarter. Non-whites are marginalized. Cops are crooks. Rebel bikers flaunt iron crosses in place of swastikas. Air is thick.

Different warnings announce other periods. Wild West; 1920s Hollywood; medieval papal-royal incest-corruption; slavering proto-humans. All for fun.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think it's legitimate for a reader to wonder why you would set a story in period X and then pepper your story with things that didn't exist in period X. A disclaimer doesn't eliminate the basic problem. I think it would be legitimate for a reader to ask you to go back to the drawing board and resolve the discrepancies either by putting the story in a different period or dealing with the plot point in a non-anachronistic way.