i’ve been thinking about the history of tagging, especially the difference between tagging for content warnings to protect a part of our community v. tagging as a labeling practice.

this thread only looks at content warnings and how we wrestle with what should be warned. https://twitter.com/yamblr/status/1338123602659602433

and some of the earliest meta is asking people to warn for ‘slash’ because they don’t want to see queer content. they aren’t discriminating, they say, but what if a child found it! it would traumatize them!

even though the fic was pg-13 and it was all sfw content.

and so i keep coming back to the question of what is a content warning (‘dub-con’ for example) and what is a label (t/b dynamics).

content warnings protect a vulnerable part of our community from from reliving a traumatic experience (looking at you qaf s1 finale)

but that’s the thing—the colloquial meaning of ‘trigger’ has evolved rapidly these past four years. it’s used to mean ‘something upsetting’ both derogatorily and in a reclamation fashion by a lot of activism-aware fandom participants

this is a smart article that plays out the way the term is used now in comparison to its psychological meaning (which *is* related to trauma) https://www.healthline.com/health/triggered

quotes:

“The more casual use of trigger warnings usually comes from a good place, but it can sometimes have an unintentionally negative impact for people dealing with trauma.”

“People may also say they’re triggered without a true understanding of what being triggered involves.”

so as we’re having conversations about the long-held fandom practice of rec accounts in regards to t/b dynamics and warning for such, let’s remember how labels function differently from content warnings

personally, i warn for content that may trigger a number of people (like choking or non-con) and i label so people who want to read something can find it (t/b, if it’s relevant)

and tagging t/b is choice i made to do. i am fine with the implications it places on the way i’m depicting queer sex *in that fic* (whose dick goes where, and because of the kinks i write, who is in control during sex).

but not everyone’s experience of queerness is like mine.

for many people, fandom friends and rl friends, t/b is just not a reasonable or healthy or relatable element of their queerness. and so they choose not to tag those sexual dynamics.

(and they are just sexual dynamics; there is nothing inherently t/b about a person.)

(if someone makes being t/b a part of how they communicate their queerness, that’s their specific choice.)

just as i choose to label t/b when relevant, some people choose not because it does not reflect the experience of queerness they are writing in that fic. and that choice is equally as fine as my choice to tag t/b.

but let’s just remember—people used to wank that ‘slash’ wasn’t tagged to warn people in case they didn’t want to see harmful content. as if someone’s experience of being a queer person was a harming, triggering act.

i come back to the same questions, every time there is tagging wank: who is the potentially vulnerable part of our community who would be protected by these tags? or is this like asking for a ‘slash warning’ and using the rhetoric of trauma to justify personal preferences?