Trigger warnings: Don’t leave before I’ve had the chance to upset you
Lauren Rosewarne says the danger of trigger warnings is that they provide an audience an all too-easy opportunity to opt-out.
Like “woke”, like “cancel culture”, like “safe spaces”, lots of ideas that started life with good intentions came to find themselves demonised, weaponised, and pointed to as proof of radicalism run amok.
Trigger warnings are part of this story. These started off from a good place, as warnings to readers about prose mentioning sexual violence. The underpinning was that an unprepared reader might become retraumatised. Such warnings then were extended to anything that might be broadly considered sensitive — think domestic violence or eating disorders or suicidal ideation — and then made their way into classrooms and lecture theatres. And because the goings-on of campuses are seemingly of great interest to those with the very least intellectual curiosity, trigger warnings have received undue media attention.
I teach about sensitive topics including sexual violence. I don’t actually favour the trigger warning approach and instead provide what I consider as a product disclosure statement: here are the topics I’m going to teach, decide for yourself — in this adult learning environment — whether this subject is right for you. Avoiding “triggering” students isn’t my primary objective.
A while back I spent a few years sitting on a committee that determines the academic futures of failings students. A pattern I’d often see is psychology subjects on transcripts, invariably accompanied by a fail grade. Very often these are students who should be seeing a psychologist and not attempting to become one. Similar patterns emerge in the areas of gender and sexuality studies. Having taught in this space for over twenty years, I’m not convinced that working through fresh personal traumas in an educative environment is a particularly effective strategy. It can work for some. For others it’s an expensive catastrophe.
As a concept trigger warnings have long sat uncomfortably with me. It’s probably the pop psychology of it all. As though retraumatisation is simply a matter of read this, feel that. As though triggers can so effortlessly be predicted. As though recollections of horrendousness can be kept at bay if “TW” heads just enough articles.
Not only is the research on the usefulness of trigger warnings patchy at best, but it lulls people into thinking that controlling one’s emotions all the time is possible or even desirable.
I’ve had a handful of students over the years ask specifically whether I was going to cover eating disorders. It’s not actually a topic I ever focus on, but just because I don’t say the words “anorexia” or “bulimia” doesn’t mean everything around those topics — body image, or advertising, or the beauty industry — won’t lead a student to assemble pieces in a certain way and become triggered.
With my writer’s hat on, I also have concerns about the spoiler aspect of trigger warnings. Personally I quite enjoy burying the lede. Sometimes I favour the gentle, meandering stroll in and then a bit of a gut-punch. I can’t take you on that journey if I’ve told you at the outset what to expect.
This sounds like an author’s indulgence. And maybe it is. But I’m also a reader. And as a reader the idea of having the tone set for me — the frame, the horror established from the outset — means I don’t get the opportunity to have a story take me to a place beyond that emotional red flag. Watching The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart recently illustrates this perfectly. Before episode one even began there was a screen warning about domestic violence. This meant that I watched the opening scenes just waiting for violence I’d otherwise not have expected. Some of the shattered domestic bliss the writers no doubt intended was lost.
Perhaps of greatest concern is the danger of providing an audience a too-easy opportunity to opt-out. The point of trigger warnings after all, is to flag sensitivities and allow people to gird themselves or to exit. As an educator, this puts me in a bit of a bind. For those who are genuinely fragile — who are teetering, whose trauma is new, who may not have sought help — there’s merit in giving the head’s up about content. For others however — for the majority of people engaging with these sensitive topics — I’m not sure I love you having the opportunity to leave before I’ve had the chance to properly upset you.
Being roiled because you hear about something devastating is not trauma, it’s being human. It’s upset and outrage after all, that motivates us to demand change.
Rather than focus on trigger warnings, I’d rather we concentrate on those equally maligned safe spaces. This, of course, is less about a room with a bean bag and soft blanket, but rather an environment created where vulnerability doesn’t come at a cost. Instead of me sanitising my material to sheath the awfulness of the world, I’d rather attention be given to supporting each other in feeling all the grief and horror and rage. Of feeling it enough to care. I fear that doesn’t happen if too many opportunities exist to simply opt-out.
Lauren Rosewarne is an Associate Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of 11 books on gender, sexuality, politics and the media.
