Warnings are not safewords

[joanne_c]

Disclaimer: My only knowledge of kink is from RPing/writing it. If I get anything wrong let me know - I won't be angry about it. I don't think I've made any egregious errors, but one never knows.

Comments

[egretplume]

Your post prompted me to go and read that other discussion, which seemed to me to fail not so much about BDSM relations but about the whole concept of author and reader that is put forth. Writer=dom/reader=sub??? Ugh. Language is bigger than everyone. They just make me want to type in all caps THE AUTHOR IS DEAD! WARN FOR THAT!

But hey, it's fandom, not literary theory.

So with humble hat in hand I have to confess that in Queen slash, I EXPECT DEATH WARNINGS. And I pout and cry and whine in the comments if there wasn't one, but Freddie Mercury dies in this fic, because if I had known this would be all that canonical, I would not have read it. I even like people to warn for extreme sadness, like not-quite-dead-yet-but-almost. I was sad enough when he really died; I don't need to go over it again in fic.

However, when it's not a fic involving Freddie Mercury, I agree with you about not needing warnings.

[carmarthen]

I wouldn't call RACK less safe so much as coming from a different perspective--the belief that "safety" is an unrealistic concept and that what's important is to understand the risks involved in any given activity rather than just categorizing activities as "safe" and "not safe".

(Of course, some RACK practitioners are creepy.)

[kendermouse]

Very good way to describe RACK. The school of thought for RACK (and not ALL RACK practitioners are creepy... really) is that things like Breath-play, Knife-play, etc are INHERENTLY dangerous, not "safe" - and very few people would call them "sane". With RACK, the acknowledgment is made that things like Breath-play, etc are NOT "safe" - but we are making them AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE by establishing ground-rules, knowing what we're doing, etc.

Most RACK players that i have met are actually MORE cautious about safety, take VERY GOOD care of their partner (both physically AND mentally, before, during and AFTER a scene), and go to GREAT LENGTHS to make sure they know what they are doing before even STARTING to "play".

Just my two-cents worth.
Psilence's maus (who plays somewhere BETWEEN SSC and RACK depending on what mood we're in before we start ::grin:: )

[carmarthen]

and not ALL RACK practitioners are creepy... really

Definitely not. And plenty of people who claim to be SSC freak me out, too. There are weirdos in every group.

[kendermouse]

exactly!

and i read your post on the Meta thing, joanne linked to. didn't mean to be preaching to the choir on the definition. ::eep:: I've spent the last 2 weeks talking academically about BDSM-Leather-D/s type relationships, dynamics, negotiations and rules with people... and going into "teacher mode" about the subject has kinda taken over my brain... ::sigh:: -- i REALLY hope i didn't offend.

peace,
the kendermouse (aka Psilence's maus, 24/7 collared, hardwired submissive who tends to not capitalize personal pronouns simply because i forget the hit the shift key and am just too lazy to go back and fix it. ::grin:: )

[kendermouse]

the person with the b**chy attitude about the "highlight to read" warning and the cookie labels bit... TOTALLY has to be someone who's had a problem being b**ched at about warnings. Personally, along the "cookie" thing - i just wouldn't waste my time with ANY of the cookies and move on to safer and less b**chy cookie sellers. ::Grin

Copied from a previous response to someone else on the topic (but with bits added)

[redfiona99]

Previous talk about this on my flist basically boiled down to you can use warnings as advertising. For instance, two people on my flist like reading about kinky sex more than they like reading about vanilla sex. If I stick a warning on for 'beware lots and lots of bondage' then they're more likely to read it, so it's a bit win/win when it comes to warning for kinky sex.

There's also some warnings I stick on for people on my flist because they don't like, say, bloodplay. As they're normally kind enough to read my fics and leave me feedback, I'm warning them in advance that they'll probably want to skip that one. Same for character death, I know one person on my flist who is v. sensitive, more so than most people would be. I'm not warning the world in general, I'm warning her in particular. I look upon it as a favour to a friend, and I really can not be bothered changing the warnings/notes section every time I post it somewhere different so other people get those waarnings too.

[karaokegal]

Not much to add. I tend to over-warn at most fic comms JUST IN CASE, which is I cherish omni_fiction where the readers are treated like adults, using just the Green/Yellow/Reg markers with no other warnings required.