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Trigger Warnings
Jul. 13th, 2012 12:29 pmI've been looking at ontd_political a bit (asking for punishment I guess.) One of the things I see there is the "TRIGGER WARNING" label, followed by rape, mention of pointy objects, baseball, whatever. I think that perhaps the rape one is warranted, but I am seeing triggers for some things that are plain odd. (There was a trigger warning for an anorexic woman being fed on a judge's order. Not right, but not exactly triggering for most folks.)
Whenever I see the abuse of trigger warnings, I think of the scene in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" where Rigby starts strangling Juliet because she says "cleaning woman" and the words trigger violence in him due to his family history... It's just that ludicrous.
I understand sensitivity, and for that reason, I don't think its appropriate to make light of rape or miscarriages or people's grandma dying, etc.
For instance, our cat Marvin died and I am a bit torn up about it sometimes, but I am not going to go around and ask for "Trigger warning: KITTY" all over the place. (On some sites I'd never be able to look at anything for all the macros posted in-line as comments.) Life has rape in it, judges force feeding anorexic women, and pointy sticks, and baseball, and cleaning women and kitties. There might as well be a label on the inside of your front door. I can't warn shrinking violets of the dangers around every corner that might harm them or scare them.
And I'm not even against trigger warnings if they appear in a place that you might have gone to AVOID discussion of triggering topics, like a website focused on "my little pony." But on ontd_political?
Whenever I see the abuse of trigger warnings, I think of the scene in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" where Rigby starts strangling Juliet because she says "cleaning woman" and the words trigger violence in him due to his family history... It's just that ludicrous.
I understand sensitivity, and for that reason, I don't think its appropriate to make light of rape or miscarriages or people's grandma dying, etc.
For instance, our cat Marvin died and I am a bit torn up about it sometimes, but I am not going to go around and ask for "Trigger warning: KITTY" all over the place. (On some sites I'd never be able to look at anything for all the macros posted in-line as comments.) Life has rape in it, judges force feeding anorexic women, and pointy sticks, and baseball, and cleaning women and kitties. There might as well be a label on the inside of your front door. I can't warn shrinking violets of the dangers around every corner that might harm them or scare them.
And I'm not even against trigger warnings if they appear in a place that you might have gone to AVOID discussion of triggering topics, like a website focused on "my little pony." But on ontd_political?
