To make this less hypothetical, I have PTSD, and the reason I used that word is because the OP's description of being unable to read further because it was provoking feelings of shame that connected directly with past emotional abuse sounded exactly like a trigger to me.corb, just because there are similarities in your experience to this askme poster doesn't mean that the intensity or particulars are in the same neighborhood. Maybe it sounds like how you'd describe your own feelings, but that's not enough to make that call.
Yeah. I used the word "trigger" because it looked like a trigger to me, boy howdy. And I think that "well, was it rape-rape?" type of argument may also be why I'm just not comfortable with "Well, the OP asked for it" being used as a defense.That's just a huge stretch, corb. It's practically a Godwin violator.
thelonius: "Actually, I pretty commonly see "possible triggers for sexual assault," "trigger warning for gore," "if your triggers involve emotional blackmail, you might want to avoid chapter three," or things along those lines. I generally assume an unqualified trigger warning is referring to either sexual assault or child abuse.Instead of "warning, this video contains triggers," "warning, this video contains graphic depictions of violence" actually says something informative.That's something that has been bothering me. How do I know what triggers someone else? Suppose I comment "that reminds me of the time we went to Disney World", and someone who reads it got raped at Disney World. Should I have said "trigger warning" first? If so, then I should preface everything I say with "trigger warning", which is absurd.
If you are concerned that the content you are posting may be difficult for some people, it's better to specify what lies ahead. I could watch video of people snorting coke all day, and it wouldn't bother me. Someone a few weeks clean from that addiction perhaps would very much need to avoid that. I'd prefer to not see depictions of gore and violent death, but it would not traumatize me; I'd just turn it off. For someone else, that might be something that would send them into PTSD attacks."
I'd strongly prefer that people didn't repurpose our content on their advertiser supported website and make money off of other people's awkward situations.and yesterday she said:
I personally think that removing this question from its context is not a great thing for someone to have done but my personal feeling about that is separate from my professional feeling about it which is that it's not illegal and it's not even unethical to the point where we'd start a thing about it. It's just uncool in that "Hey man, not cool" way that sometimes happens. So I agree with people, it's disrespectful generally speaking.and earlier today taz said:
I'm not really fond of these call-outs of Ask Me threads that involve personal questions, and even less so when they are anonymous. For one thing, it draws a great deal more attention to something sensitive than most posters ever anticipate, and the whole thing becomes more freighted as people start arguing both sides of the issue......my reaction is less sad and more angry. It's one thing to drag the "triggers" discussion over to The Awl - but the Anon AskMe is dragged over there as well. It should not have been, since it was not necessary to have done so, and I definitely expect a member of the site should be more sensitive to that, especially with what the mods have said about it (all quoted above) very recently here.
...I really feel like they shouldn't be forced to deal with some angry site issue (often with attendant attacks on them, personally) as a byproduct of their post.
To me, this is the biggest flaw in the Metatalk system of handling site problems/questions. I cringe every time someone's at-all personal question is brought up here. I don't know what to do about that, but I'd urge people to maybe try discussing it with us first, or at least to try to frame the Metatalk thread to be less about a single post or poster and more about general observations.
It's difficult, because then people demand links to examples, but I'll just make a general plea to try to be aware of the spotlight that a Metatalk post throws on specific questions like this, and the likelihood that people will then begin to deconstruct the post in ways that don't normally happen in the typical life of a thread on Ask Metafilter...
posted by corb at 1:48 PM on May 31, 2012 [3 favorites]
Sometimes metafilter can be a very supportive and enlightening place, and it was with that expectation that I posted my question. After reading some of the meannest (yes, mean and nasty, speaking as the person most affected) answers and noting all their favourites, seeing the way you and others were being argued down in metatalk, no response (to me) from the mods, and then the awfully shitty Awl posting--whose author certainly took license for their insensitivity from the threads, I seriously considered disabling my account. I certainly regretted ever posting in the first place.
Then I went back to my post and was really pleased and heartened to find a series of wonderful new comments of exactly the kind that I was seeking. I guess I didn't frame my post well enough; I should have just requested proposal stories, since those made me realise that I'm neither alone nor a cretin for having my initial feelings, or for the way we went about preparing to get engaged. Feeling "not alone" is what it turned out I needed. That being said, I will always disagree that I "asked for" answers devoid of empathy. I no longer regret posting the question because in spite of the judgements and mischaracterisations in the askme and in the ensuing metatalk ("princess" by far being the most amusing) and the general brouhaha, I got quite a lot of beauty out of it, and I sincerely hope those answers help others in similar situations.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:39 PM on May 29, 2012 [4 favorites]