r/RomanceBooks • u/Magnafeana there’s some whores in this house (i live alone) • 1d ago
⚠️Content Warning Queer identities, ethnicities, disabilities, religions, and non-PIV intimacies are not “mature”, “sensitive”, or “triggering” content needing to be warned. I’ll die on this hill. EX: {Hidden by Kelsey Soliz}
Image Description: In big text, all caps: “Content Warning” preceded by the following: “There are topics in this book some readers might be sensitive to. You're about to read MM, dubcon, unaliving bad guys, close-call sexual assault (with no gRape), kid-napping, stepbrother lovin', and FF scenes that occur before the harem builds. If any of these things trigger you, please plan on skipping the scenes or finding something else to suit”.
I’m just fucking ✨mad✨. The book is an example, but my rant is on a broader focus.
TL;DR: there isn’t a reason to consider marginalized identities as sensitive, triggering, sexual, or adult topics—whether in media or real life. We should strive for neutral discoverability that respects all readers and their autonomy rather than alienating marginalized groups to protect the comfort of non-marginalized communities.
Definitions: What is a Content Warning, Trigger Warning, Theme, and Mature Theme?
Content warnings (CWs) are a broad umbrella about possibly sensitive topics and intense material. At its core, they are content that needs to be warned about.
Examples:
- Graphic violence
- Self-harm
- Sexual assault
Trigger warnings (TWs), which originated between the 1960s to 1990s through feminist movements and psychology/psychiatry, focus more narrowly on preventing traumitization. They are warning about triggering topics.
Examples:
- Kidnapping and abduction
- Islamophobia
- Antisemitism
- Transmisogyny
- Animal cruelty or death
- Demonization of mental illness
Themes mean that an element has a significant narrative focus. It doesn’t just “exist” (EX: An Afrolatina character), but it’s examined meaningfully (EX: the Afrolatina character struggling with colorism and identity).
Examples:
- Pacifism
- Environmentalism
- Heritage
- Marriage
Mature themes (MT) function largely as a rating category content deemed not suitable for children. It doesn’t need to be graphic, just too complex for children to comprehend deeply.
Examples:
- Graphic Sex
- Drug use
- Violence
- Profanity
How these concepts differ.
- TWs are CWs, but not all CWs are TWs. CWs aren’t warnings specifically related to trauma and are largely for items of discomfort or aversion.
- MT normally isn’t part of CW and TW’s dom/sub relationship. They’re typically with their found family of MPAA/MPA and ESRB ratings (PG, PG-13, M, NC 17+, etc). Even so, mediums outside of films and gaming have used the term to describe “mature” themes.
Let’s review!
- Content Warning (CW): broad warning for possibly sensitive content or content that can cause discomfort.
- Trigger Warning (TW): narrow focus traumatizing subjects.
- Themes: meaningful narrative focus on an element.
- Mature Themes (MT): rating shorthand for content isn’t suitable for children.
We are now on the same page, yes? 🥰
If someone defends queer identities, ethnicities, disabilities, and religions as needing to be content warned, trigger warned, or given a “mature theme” categorization, I’m whacking you with my chancla.
The cheek, the nerve, the gall, the audacity, and the gumption.
Warnings Can Go Too Far
Sometimes, there’s this bizarreness I see in some romance material: warnings and mature theme categorizations slapped onto marginalized identities, such as bisexuality, demiromanticism, MLM relationships, trans people, autism, or some flavor of non-penis-in-vagina (PIV) intimacy. These aren’t neutrally tagged as elements; they were listed as content that may trigger you.
Right next to dub con, rape, and assault.
Meanwhile, neurotypical people, endosex people, cisgender people, hetero identities, man-woman relationships, and PIV get a free pass. No warnings. No nothing.
Anyone want to ELI5 why? 🤔
There is a long, brutal history regarding the sexualization and adultification of marginalized identities that has followed us into modernity, whether we like it or not. Non-PIV intimacy is routinely hypersexualized and delegitimized in comparison to PIV, including “sex” definition homogeneity and BDSM and kink demonization. Non-PIV intimacy being anomalized as inherently too graphic, sexual, or adult is contributing to sex-negative rhetoric that shames sexual expression and creates arbitrary criteria on what type of sexual expression is “normal” and “natural”.
When {Breeding Clinic by Alexis Osborne} had that list of “mature themes” include demisexuality and anal and “sword crossing”, but PIV and heterosexuality weren’t included—
tutting aggressively
If you find that it’s reasonable to prescribe specific identities, experiences, and configurations as triggering, sensitive, sexual, or graphic topics or content warnings—what does this look like when applied to reality?
In the words of that opening line from Round 1 from Pentagon’s (😭) bonus track, let’s find out!
- Before you go inside that Walmart, I see three Muslim women inside. If that’s not okay, we can go to a different Walmart. [There are several people there with markings for Ash Wednesday.]
- Love to recommend you a vet for your pet! But he’s gay and married to a man. Is that okay? Will you be okay with that, or…? [Your past vet was a man married to a woman and you didn’t even know he was married until he brought it up.]
- [We go see a movie and in the movie’s warnings, it says “Contains graphic sex, profanity, and black people”. 98% of the cast is white.]
- You have kids? I’m not sure if you should take them to the fair. It’s not all that safe there and it’s just going to confuse your kids and give them ideas. One of them could be snatched up there too. [shows you a flyer for a family-friendly Pride festival which gives clear hours when the festival will be 21+. A local security firm, masses of trained volunteers, and the American Red Cross will be working as well. Your kids are 17 and 15.]
DM, I would like to do an Eldritch Blast to vent my anger 🥰
Now those examples might seem not at all in the same vein as content warnings about MLM or Hinduism in a book—but they are. Because you are still actively warning about and moralizing specific identities and experiences while finding other identities and experiences barely worth a footnote. You are picking and choosing what needs permission to exist normally and naturally and what doesn’t.
How is that fair or okay?
You don’t need to “content warn” about a Hindu anymore than you content warn about a Christian. A character being acespec isn’t a “mature theme”, just like heterosexuality ain’t. A woman loving another woman is not a “sensitive topic”, just as a heterogendered relationship. Anal and oral sex are not “adult content” anymore than PIV sex is. Because none of those are inherently dangerous, traumatic, disturbing, upsetting, sensitive, or “mature”.
When you warn about identities, you are pathologizing them as contaminating and harmful, especially when you shelve them in the same “triggering” or “sensitive” warning as sexual assault and rape.
That’s not giving a casual heads-up. That’s creating a binary that endosex cisgender able-bodied neurotypical white man-woman heterosexual, heteroromantic, heterogendered relationships with PIV sex are a default and whatever does not conform is a red flag. That is adhering to the rhetoric many use against marginalized identities in order to remove us from conversation.
Neutral Discoverability > Warning for Identities
“But I still think you should be told what’s inside a book! I have personal bad experiences with [things here]!”
✅
That’s why tagging and listing identities, configurations, religions, intimacies, and ethnicities is the best neutral and inclusive way for discoverability of elements.
Tagging and Listing
Here’s examples of neutral ways to list out a books contents that aim to respect reader autonomy while also respecting identities:
Subtitles
- Sapphic Omegaverse
- Achillean Guideverse
- NBi BDSM Romance
- Interracial Romance / BWAM
Listing
This book has:
- transmasc protagonist
- drag queen domme
- black female lead
- Jewish drag king
- forcefemming
- sadomasochism
- anal sex
- white agender character
Introduction/Foreword
The book that I write has characters and experience of a wide range. You’ll find a trans bloodthirsty gramma with shadow magic knitting a blanket for her grandson’s intersex boyfriend. I probably should have toned down all the tentacles and hand holding, but it was needed for plot reasons. But there’s some experiences in here that stem from my own life. The main couple’s femme son experiencing misogyny from his moms is one I faced with my androgyny with my queer parents.
This makes the content visible to people looking for those identities and experiences in a neutral way. It doesn’t imply that these are sensitive, triggering, or upsetting content. And in an industry that still prioritizes and gives hyper visibility to endocishet, white, vaguely Christian/Catholic, neurotypical, able-bodied protagonists and non-BDSM non-kinky dom-top-masc man and sub-bottom-femme woman relationships—we need this discoverability!
Why is this more neutral and inclusive than content warnings? I think content warnings give informed consent. You’re confusing what content warnings are.
Content warnings means warning about content. To warn means “to give notice beforehand of evil or danger; to put on guard; to caution, to advise that something should be avoided”.
In warning about the existence of non-Christian religions, 2SLGBTQIA+ people, POCs, the disabled—that’s not a neutral stance giving informed consent anymore. That’s telling you that these identities are ones readers need to be on guard of, that people should be cautious about; that readers may want avoid them. That’s misinforming you that those identities are advisories.
Discoverability should extend to dominating and hypervisible identities.
To me, it’s a good practice to still tag identities that dominate the industry or are hypervisible. This helps destigmatize marginalized identities. It supports parity, normalization, identity neutrality, and reader autonomy as well.
I’m grateful I found a book with a nonbinary love interest who presents trad-masc and uses he/him pronouns. The tagging gave me autonomy in reading what I want! But even though the main character is an endocishet white woman, her identities should also be tagged to further enhance discoverability, accessibility, and autonomy rather than assuming her identity would be some default and thus not needing to be discoverable.
Equal tagging = equal footing = people get to engage with the art they want.
Hanlon's razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance.”
It says stupidity but anyways.
I’m not attributing malice where ignorance can be explained because I don’t know them from Gaia. I don’t want to invalidate people who have had bad personal experiences that lent themselves to confirmation biases, yet they still don’t mistreat others.
But I’m not sure what other way I can stress that it’s offensive for someone to think that the nature of a sapphic relationship equals graphic sex, or that arospec needs the same warning as rape and assault. That sets a dangerous precedent that identities are content to be warned against and specific identities are inherently as vile as rape and assault. That allows people with malicious intent to take advantage of an ambiguous classification and weaponize it for their discriminating agendas.
If you still find it reasonable that some identities should be warned about, I have a few questions:
- How do you explain to your queer friends you find their orientations are on the same level as sexual predation and violence but you being endocishet is normal and fine?
- How do you explain to your Jewish friend that them existing as a Jew is something you warn people about, but you as a Christian should be accepted anywhere and everywhere?
- How do you explain to someone with DID or autism or BPD or they require mobility aids—that them existing is socially upsetting and uncomfortable for people to be around? But you being able-bodied and neurotypical are socially safe and sound.
- How do you tell your friend that them being in an interracial relationship is a mature topic that may need to be avoided in conversation? But you as a white person are married to another white person and that right there is safe for everyone.
Life and art intersect. How you frame the existence of identities is not absolved from criticism just because it’s about a book’s contents. And this is deeper than books.
Many activist organizations have fought the MPA/MPAA, the Hays Code, and other organizations for their enforcement of explicit categorizations for queer and POC content that were less explicit than endocishet, white content. We saw how many weeks ago of queer authors who were targeted in the deindexation of NSFW content due to an Australian hate group and payment processors—and some queer authors spoke about how their work was SFW yet yoinked.
It’s been so widely and historically normalized to adulify and sexualize marginalized and less visible identities in every medium—especially by artists who aren’t themselves those identities—that people correlate normalization to justification without any deeper examination. And I can’t deny that a lot of intersectionality is lost among the book community as POC, queer, and disabled readers and artists feel unwelcome to speak up in “diverse” and “safe” spaces that still largely cater to endocishet white able-bodied neurotypical voices.
But I will fucking die on this motherfucking hill* that we don’t deserve to be content warned, especially not in the same goddamn breath as rape and assault.
Be neutral. Support autonomy. Respect everyone.
Neutrality is boring. It doesn’t skew positive or negative. It has no objective stance beyond, “This exists. Okay. The end.” It, instead, forces you to draw your own conclusions.
And that’s the most wonderful and respectful stance to take.
Categorizing elements neutrally optimizes respect for autonomy. You get to decide if you personally feel that something is harmful to you rather than someone making the choice for all of us. And no one’s identities are negatively affected in that process.
This doesn’t mean trigger warnings and content warnings should disappear. But because they have been used in negatively moralizing diversity, there needs to be constant reformations in warnings and their criteria based on context and impact.
I want readers to read what they want. We should protect and defend reader autonomy. And we can do that without alienating marginalized and less visible communities, I promise you.
All right.
Bye 👋🏾
Supportive Material
* Bridgland, Victoria. “Cautionary Notes: The Science of Trigger Warnings.” Association for Psychological Science - APS, 19 Oct. 2023, www.psychologicalscience.org/news/utc-2023-oct-trigger-warnings.html.
* “Content Warnings | Centre for Teaching Excellence.” Uwaterloo.ca, 21 May 2024, uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/catalogs/tip-sheets/content-warnings.
* Filipovic, Jill. “We’ve Gone Too Far with “Trigger Warnings” | Jill Filipovic.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 20 Sept. 2017, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/05/trigger-warnings-can-be-counterproductive.
* Garnar, Martin. “Trigger Warnings: History, Theory, Context , Edited by Emily J. M. Knox.” Journal of Intellectual Freedom & Privacy, vol. 3, no. 2-3, 2018, pp. 12–13, journals.ala.org/index.php/jifp/article/view/6738/9332.
* George, Vishal . “The Psychology of Trigger Warnings.” Behaviouralbydesign.com, 2018, www.behaviouralbydesign.com/post/the-psychology-of-trigger-warnings.
* Motion Picture Association of America. ““G” Is for Golden: The MPAA Film Ratings at 50.” Motion Picture Association of America, Nov. 2018. 🔗 [**PDF**](https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/G-is-for-Golden.pdf)
* The Vocal. “A History of Trigger Warnings, and the Price and Diversity of Pain.” Medium, 17 Mar. 2016, medium.com/the-vocal/a-history-of-trigger-warnings-and-the-price-and-diversity-of-pain-ac8e796d0d70.
* Trigger, Language. “Inclusive Language: Trigger & Content Warnings.” University Housing, 11 Feb. 2025, www.housing.wisc.edu/2025/02/inclusive-language-triggers-and-content-warnings/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.
* University of Michigan. “An Introduction to Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings Overview.” University of Michigan. 🔗 [**PDF**](https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/equitable-teaching/wp-content/uploads/sites/853/2020/09/An-Introduction-to-Content-Warnings-and-Trigger-Warnings-PDF.pdf)
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u/DientesDelPerro buys in bulk at used bookstores 1d ago
unaliving and gRape are especially egregious
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u/girlofgold762 Probably reading about filthy mafia men committing sin after sin 1d ago
Imagine being someone who has no social media and is picking up their first romance book only to open it up to that.
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u/an_uncommon_common 1d ago
What is the deal with "unalive"? I don't get why people can't say dead, killed or murdered? Is this something from TikTok? This is the only social media I use, so I must be missing something.
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u/itsmiddylou 1d ago
I feel like it stemmed from certain words getting profiles and pages flagged for content, so people started getting creative on how they call things.
Unalive > Sui-slide. I’ll take unalive over that dumb fucking abomination any day.
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u/yellowroosterbird 1d ago
god i hate when people say sewer slide instead of suicide.
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u/prettysureIforgot Gimme all the sad anxious bois 1d ago
If I saw that I would have no fucking idea what they were talking about.
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
Please tell me that “sewer slide” isn’t actually a thing. (I hate that any of these “terms” are things.)
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u/yellowroosterbird 1d ago
It absolutely is. The word itself sounds disgusting. I know sucicide isn't glamorous but actually using the word suicide give a level of human decency and respect that "sewer slide" absolutely does not convey.
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u/Slave_to_the_Pull 1d ago
I've seen it used ironically (I think) but yeah, it's a thing. I hate it too.
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u/Fussel2107 1d ago
I take neither. It seems immature and cares more about social media than writing. So, hard pass.
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u/itsmiddylou 1d ago
Oh I wouldn’t want both either, but if it comes down to it, I will absolutely pick on over the other.
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u/an_uncommon_common 1d ago
So unalive means suicide?
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u/DientesDelPerro buys in bulk at used bookstores 1d ago
I think it depends on the context. To unalive yourself would be suicide. To unalive bad guys would be killing.
Hence, the benefjt of using the actual words lol
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u/Hunter037 Probably recommending When She Belongs 😍 1d ago
I've seen "self unaliving" as a content warning meaning (presumably) suicide. It's so stupid
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u/an_uncommon_common 1d ago
Thanks. I don't get why an author, who is not on a censoring site, would not use real words. Is it the same with the gRape? As someone who has never been on tiktok this seems so dumb.
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u/itsmiddylou 1d ago
Unalive generally refers to death in some form. Like I’m going to “unalive” him, or they unalived themselves.
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u/TrollHamels Abducted by aliens – don’t save me 1d ago
It's a euphemistic way to say a person has died, like "passed away", but for TikTok/SM users.
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u/WVgirly2024 Melt me like Ilya's sandwiches 1d ago
Not only TikTok, there are also a bunch of words you can't use on Facebook. It can take forever to figure out what the poster is trying to say.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 1d ago
It’s the de-monetizing of content if it is not advertiser friendly. I know that Ask a Mortician on YouTube has this issue due to her documentaries on different disasters as well as just talking about the funeral industry.
So if you are trying to get money from social media and extend your reach you react badly when the algorithm stops promoting you.
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u/EmpireAndAll your alt best friend roommate 1d ago
That's exactly what I thought of first. Content warnings are useless if you have to know what codewords mean to understand them.
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u/prettysureIforgot Gimme all the sad anxious bois 1d ago
Or someone learning English as a second (or more) language. How in the actual hell are you supposed to guess the meaning here.
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u/ivys-poison Ali Hazelwood Apologist 1d ago
Terms that would deal psychic damage to a Victorian child
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u/fullmoonthoughts Sebastian Dorner enthusiast 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is exactly what I was going to say! TikTok censorship making its way into everyday speech is so infuriating. Someone please tell these authors they can say the words murder and rape in content warnings. It also shows they’re taking the warning serious - the words gRape and unalive just sound juvenile.
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u/Fussel2107 1d ago
Also, what are they gonna do in the book?
"Oh no, he was gRaped?"
"I'm gonna unalive this motherfucker!"
Like, what?!
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u/AtheistTheConfessor "enemies" to lovers 1d ago
Genuinely, I'd rather see no warnings at all than those. Not every reader speaks self-censoring gibberish.
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u/Keksdepression 1d ago
The very second I read “unaliving” I would have thrown that book right out through a closed window.
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u/thiefspy 1d ago
NGL if I opened a book and saw those in the triggers that would be as far as I read.
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u/readskiesdawn 1d ago
This is what makes me think this list is fanfiction influences. On those websites, all the tags are jumbled together so more serious warnings are listed right next to category tags.
Although if this author wanted to really embrace fanfic ways of going about it they should have written, "This book has homoerotic scenes and explicit gay sex. If that bothers you I dont want you reading it anyways" (basically an actual authors note I read for a fanfic years back)
Then, list the more serious content warnings.
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u/VirginiaDirewoolf 1d ago
there's likely some influence there but it all comes down from advertisers on websites not allowing you to use words that parents don't want a 3 year old to overhear.
that's it.
that's the entirety of the internet and the world we're living in/ going to live in.
advertisers catering to whatever a consulting firm has decided is the lowest common denominator currently, and people doing only what advertisements tell us to do.
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u/readskiesdawn 1d ago
It drives me nuts because, honestly, that's the responsibility of the parents. And I say this as someone who will be one soon. Unless the website is explicitly a kid-safe space (or a corner of that website that is quarantined into one) then the responsibility should not be on the website or content creators, it's on the parents to properly monitor what thier kids look at or child block.
My mother read every book I read before I did to make sure it was either appropriate for me and/or she was ready to have the conversations they would cause until I was 11 unless it was for school. She did something similar with TV shows and movies that I wanted to see but were out of my age range.
Advertisers can also just separate adult, child and mixed spaces. They'd probably make more revenue that way anyway so the extra up front cost shouldn't matter. Adults generally (parents and toy collectoes notwithstanding) don't want to see ads for kids stuff, kids shouldn't see ads for adult stuff.
The fact is, the creator labeling the content with an appropriate age rating should be the start and end of their due diligence. Your shit tagged for adult audiences? Not your fault someone not paying attention to what thier kids watch finds out thier nine year old is watching True Crime content.
The fact that people feel the need to do it with Romance, Mystery and Thriller novels sold as books for adults is getting absurd.
Much of the time, it's not even consulting firms. There's outside religious groups that pressure them and payment companies to make these policies and the larger age verification issue. That's what's happening with adult video games right now, a religious group complained to credit card companies causing thoae companies to force online retailers to remove the games regardless if they were tagged or not.
I do think that as a collective, creators and consumers need to fight back against it. Not only because of what I've already said, but because kid-only (and as a result kid-safe) spaces both in person and online and in person. And this is not a good thing.
Like there were probably creeps on things like Neopets and Webkins too, but they were designed in ways that would limit the risk. There was some website somewhere that required you knowing your friend's email and them knowing yours as a barely remembered example.
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u/dahllaz 1d ago
Less fanfic (I think) than it is specifically TikTok.
TikTok has an algorithm that people try to game and avoid the site burying there content so they use code words.
The (I think) biggest fan fic site around is AO3 and that has no algorithm.
I will (and have) quit reading fanfic that uses unalive, I sure as hell am not going to pay for a book that uses it.
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u/readskiesdawn 1d ago edited 1d ago
The language is TikTok, but no fanfiction site has an algorithm. Tumblr doesn't either, and there's a lot of fanfic. But in all of them the tags tend to be a list of everything, so you get "this character is in it" next to "here's the heavy content warning" and the "dead dove do not eat."
Basically, I see both as a symptom of being heavily online.
Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, censoring the words for sensitive, triggering, and NSFW subjects (not queer, just general stuff you don't want to get caught looking at) is against tumblr etiquette because it can be seen as a way to get around blocks. The only time it's tolerated there is when you're censoring a name of a character or a person you're hating on so it doesn't end up in the main tag, and even then people will tell you to just tag it "name critical" or "character hate" and put it under a read more so people can filter it.
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u/NoCarbsOnSunday 1d ago
Content warning works for me—they used “unalive” instead of kill/murder/etc., so I know the content of whatever they wrote will be straight trash.
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u/book_worm626 1d ago
I thought that was to get around Amazon censorship issues? Like it’s annoying but better there if someone needs it?
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u/DientesDelPerro buys in bulk at used bookstores 1d ago
I’ve seen plenty of trigger/content warnings that use the actual words.
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u/emmach17 1d ago
The better question would be why are we supporting companies forcing us to self-censor when we want to talk about serious issues.
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u/book_worm626 1d ago
I agree, but I don’t think punishing indie authors for being overly cautious is the right way to do it
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u/thiefspy 1d ago
If someone is going to write a rape into a book and is afraid to say the word, that tells me everything I need to know about how they handled the rape storyline.
This isn’t an Amazon or indie author problem, it’s that specific author.
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u/Fussel2107 1d ago
It has nothing to do with Amazon.
It's a TikTok thing. They algorithm doesn't show videos where those words appear.
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
I could see this being a concern if the content warnings were in the book blurb (i.e. being concerned the book wouldn’t show up as much in searches), but this particular content warning looks like it’s coming straight from the book. (Authors sometimes include one at the very beginning of the book so a complete list is accessible for people who download a sample before purchasing.)
Even if Amazon was censoring certain words (I don’t think that they do?), they wouldn’t be censoring the content of books. Authors should be as explicit and clear as possible in their content warnings within a book.
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u/book_worm626 1d ago
I’ve seen authors talking about certain things flagging as objectionable and getting books auto taken down by Amazon. Like that’s why a lot of authors have their content warnings on their websites rather than in their books (to avoid the TikTok words). I think it’s random rather than guaranteed, but I 100% understand them wanting to not take the risk
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
Was it based on the blurb though? Or the actual content of the books. Because I’ve read books off of Amazon that had a lot of very explicit content (violent, sexual, and otherwise). Dark romance is a growing genre these days, and I’d imagine it would be hard for any of those books to exist in the Amazon ecosystem if Amazon was censoring the content of books.
I, personally, don’t mind if authors direct you to their website for full content warnings, but I know there are others who take issue with it. Either way, I think authors owe it to readers to put out clear and explicit content warnings somewhere where it’s easily accessible if they’re putting out books with potentially triggering content (i.e. on-page rape).
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u/book_worm626 1d ago
I’m pretty sure it was the content, but there being specific trigger words? It could also be because the content warnings at the beginning of a book are part of the previews so it’s covered in a way the entire book would be? But I don’t think it was just the blurb. And I think it’s very random, like people with the exact same trigger words and one would get flagged and one wouldn’t so I think there’s a lot of uncertainty about it? I agree that warnings should be clear, but I also don’t blame authors for being cautious when random Amazon decisions literally affect their ability to pay their bills ya know
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u/Low-Crazy-8061 1d ago
It is hard for me to imagine Amazon would be suppressing or removing books with the words “kill”, “murder”, and “rape” in them. Unless they just don’t have any mysteries on KU.
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u/pelipperr 1d ago
The fact that they literally wrote “gRape” tells me everything I need to know about the author tbh.
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u/nuclearniki Did somebody say himbo? 1d ago
Took the words right out of me. So ridiculous and infantilizing.
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u/pelipperr 1d ago
Yep. I find it really offensive and would never read anything by someone who used any form of Tik Tok speech to replace the word rape. I also don’t typically read books that would though because I don’t have KU and it seems to run rampant in self published books from what I’ve seen in posts here.
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u/wastetide 1d ago
Same on all accounts. I'm quite happy not having KU. I've never accounted this before, and I'd like to maintain that
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u/Unusual-Molasses5633 1d ago
Seriously.
If you can't use the word in the damn trigger warnings, like hell I trust you to write about it with anything resembling sensitivity or competence.
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u/singwhatyoucantsay ominous dildo cleaning 1d ago
Reading "unaliving" and "gRape" made me recoil faster than those scenes themselves would. If you can't say the actual words, why are you even writing about those topics?
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u/TemporarilyWorried96 Collecting Sinful Dukes Like Infinity Stones 1d ago
Exactly! If you can’t use the word “rape”, you shouldn’t be talking about rape.
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u/whocares023 Dead men tell no tales 🦜 1d ago
I feel dumb, because I had no idea what the author meant by gRape at first.
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u/AtheistTheConfessor "enemies" to lovers 1d ago
You had an incredibly normal response. The author’s the one who should feel dumb for making us read that.
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u/singwhatyoucantsay ominous dildo cleaning 1d ago
I use a screen reader due to blindness. The first time I heard "grape" as a double meaning of rape, there was no weird capitalization like in the post above.
So I sat there staring at my screen in utter confusion as to why a fruit was so controversial it had to be warned about.
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u/Low-Crazy-8061 1d ago
I honestly thought she meant gang rape and thought she was specifying that there is no gang rape.
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u/Marchellaneous 1d ago
The author can say the actual words but if they mentioned the words as they are in the trigger warning, what's the point of trigger warning?
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u/euphoriapotion Looking for a man in Romance, trust fund, 6'5, brown eyes 👀👀👀 1d ago
grape and unaliving? Is this kindergarden? Why are we infantilizing the language? I blame tiktok
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u/haqiqa 1d ago
You should actually blame TikTok and similarly censored platforms because these are words used to get around the filters.
The real problem with it is that they become wider euphemisms that are too often used where they are unnecessary. I also genuinely think this type of censorship has no place anywhere. We should be able to talk about rape, killing, self harm etc with their right names.
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
The real problem with it is that they become wider euphemisms that are too often used where they are unnecessary.
Completely agree. It is absurd that this type of censoring has somehow become normalized and accepted into regular vernacular.
Using these (ridiculous) euphemisms in any context undermines the seriousness of the topics (who the fuck is really going to take “gRape” seriously). But, I can kind of understand why people might use it on TikTok so that they still have a way to discuss those topics on that platform. Zero excuse to extend it beyond what is absolutely freaking necessary.
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u/thatgoosegirlie 1d ago
This shit makes the "WARNING: BOYXBOY!!!! DON'T LIKE DON'T READ!!!!" in ye olde Fanfiction . net descriptions look good
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u/AliceTheGamedev Has Opinions 1d ago
While we're on the topic, I'll add that psychology/science suggests that "TRIGGER WARNING: this content may upset you" is in itself, potentially harmful language that can make a person's reaction to the content in question worse. A neutral "content note: this book has x, y and z" is better because it still gives the info you need but does not prime you to have a specific reaction to it.
What's also worth noting is that for people with traumata, what constitutes a "trigger" can vary wildly. For one person it might be a scent, for someone else it might be a specific style of a piece of clothing that their assailant was wearing, for someone else it might be a specific pattern that they were looking at on the wall while the traumatic event occurred.
We realistically can't warn against every possible thing that could be a trigger, but we can include as much information as possible, for those who need it.
It's good to know if a book contains M/M or F/F scenes, not because those things specifically could trigger a trauma response but because we all want to know what we're getting into. (as you've said in the OP re. neutral listing) Listing queerness as something to be listed among things like SA and murder (or gRape and Unaliving, if you have let algo-friendly speech patterns rot your writer's brain for some reason) is a really bad look tho, no disagreement from me there.
I'll once again praise AO3 for its tagging system and include/exclude functionality because that imo is a great example of "one reader's trash is another one's treasure" or rather "one reader's trauma is another one's kink": anything can be either, and we shouldn't as writers or readers judge which is which, but simply inform each other as to what is there.
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u/shesthewoooorst cinnamon roll connoisseur 1d ago
Yes, these are great points. I'd also add that it's poor practice to advise "If these things trigger you, please plan on skipping the scenes" while providing zero context as to when and where the scenes occur.
Part of the benefit of including content warnings is providing people with choices so they can decide if and how they want to engage with the content.
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u/kelskelsea Baseball season... with see through pants 1d ago
Yes, one of the authors I like puts warnings at the beginning of the book AND the chapter in which it happens.
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u/AliceTheGamedev Has Opinions 1d ago
agreed! And if you wanna avoid spoilers (i.e. giving too much detail to readers ahead of reading), you can always do stuff like "detailed content information can be found on page xyz" or give a QR code to a website with more detail.
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u/Jemhao 1d ago
When you warn about identities, you are pathologizing them as contaminating and harmful, especially when you shelve them in the same "triggering" or "sensitive" warning as sexual assault and rape.
Yes. I’ve seen identity mentioned exactly once in a trigger warning. After I got over my shock that the author would even consider someone’s sexual orientation to be triggering, I closed out of it.
There are so many books out there, and so many authors to support. I have no interest wasting my time on one that fucks around with any kind of light bigotry in their trigger warnings.
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u/haleorshine 1d ago
Absolutely. Just because extreme right wing types want to act like being gay or trans is adult content doesn't mean we should be going along with it, especially in romance novels. In fact, going along with it is absolutely adding to and normalising homophobia and transphobia and I'm not going to read any author who does that.
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u/Immediate-Answer-259 1d ago
Once again, you make great points, and you bring the RECEIPTS!! I love the combination of lived experience, reading experience, and research this post provides.
Imagine equating MM and FF themes/aspects of the story with murder and rape. And in this case, the note that's like "FF, but don't worry, you won't get much of that once the real story gets going." Ugh.
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
HAHA! The way I scoffed out loud when I read MM and FF scenes as part of the “content warnings”. What?? (Dear author, your bigotry is showing.) Basically, (the way I read it) the author is saying that existence of LGBTQ+ scenes is so offensive that they need to be warned about.
Not to mention the fact that they used the terms “unaliving” and “gRape.” First of all, it makes me believe the author is not taking this content warning seriously (it reads absolutely childish). Second, maybe if you can’t bring yourself to type out the words “murder” and “rape,” these are themes you (the author) do not have the maturity to handle. (And they thought it was a good idea to put those warnings next to the MM, FF stuff? Seriously?? Warning! Gay sex and murder!)
You are picking and choosing what needs permission to exist normally and naturally and what doesn’t.
Absolutely this!
Neutrality is boring. It doesn’t skew positive or negative. It has no objective stance beyond, “This exists. Okay. The end.” It, instead, forces you to draw your own conclusions. And that’s the most wonderful and respectful stance to take.
I love this. I’ll gently push back and say neutrality isn’t boring! The sample intro you included was witty, informative, and colorful. The only thing “neutrality” does is remove judgment and prejudices against marginalized people and practices. Like you said, tagging basically serves the same purpose as warnings without the judgment!
Thank you for the time and research you put into assembling this post. ❤️ I especially appreciated the breakdown of terms. (I always thought CWs and TWs were interchangeable. I’m still sorting it out, but your post helps a lot!)
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u/Jemhao 1d ago
Second, maybe if you can't bring yourself to type out the words "murder" and "rape," these are themes you (the author) do not have the maturity to handle.
Exactly. And if you think you should include MM/FF scenes as part of your trigger warning, maybe you aren’t the person who should be writing them in the first place.
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u/prettysureIforgot Gimme all the sad anxious bois 1d ago
Oh don't worry, it's just a phase that ends as soon as the real relationship starts
(hopefully it's clear this is very obvious sarcasm; the entire "content warning" paragraph is a shitshow of the author telling on themselves over anything else.)
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
Right? And here, it’s all before the “harem” builds?? Like the MM and FF scenes needing warning, but the harem didn’t? (I’m assuming it’s one of those “no dicks touching” harems, so we wouldn’t have to be concerned about any homosexuality seeping through. 🙄)
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u/spooopy111 1d ago
they warn about MM and FF scenes but still use them in their books to sexualize them more :/
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
Yep! Good enough for sex scenes. Not good enough for relationships. (Is the message they’re sending. 👎)
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u/Current-Finger-3516 1d ago edited 1d ago
Imagine being a whole author and you say shit like "grape" and "unaliving" wtf is this tiktok??
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u/akelasfamiliar 1d ago
This reminds me of the book {fall by a.j. Merlin}
Direct quote from the book: (My voice breaks, and I hate the sudden pressure of tears behind my eyes that I have to fight to blink away. “And now you want to unalive me in the woods.” “I do not want to unalive you in the woods,” Kieran disagrees.)
This book is about serial killers and serious dub con/non con/rape. Lol what is happening 😭
We’re having a literacy crisis.
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u/romance-bot 1d ago
Prowl by A.J. Merlin
Rating: 4⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Topics: werewolves, curvy heroine, childfree-couple, magic, tall-heroine
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u/TrifleTrouble 1d ago
Thank you for this well written, well through out post. You have perfectly put your thumb on something that has been bothering me. I'm all for warning about things that may actually be triggering (in the true sense of the word) but find a lot of TWs in books to be ridiculous.
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u/kelskelsea Baseball season... with see through pants 1d ago
Some of them read like the author is writing an ad
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u/TrifleTrouble 1d ago
Yes! Almost like a "see how edgy i am" sort of thing. It's pretty gross to combine that with legit TWs/CWs.
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u/No_Astronaut5083 1d ago
Also this is really great work and should be an actual published article because you clearly did the work and the research to explain why words matter in content warnings and why this an important conversation to have
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u/Tastefulunseenclocks 1d ago
One thing I'd add/change - there's a movement in trauma-informed spaces to use the term content warning instead of trigger warning for the same thing, but as more inclusive language. The term trigger, which can reference a gun, is triggering to some people. Content warning has been seen as a neutral term so that the warning itself is not potentially a trigger. I've seen this usage several times and when I publish work I've switched over to using content warning.
So just because you see content warning as a term does not necessarily mean that it's about discomfort rather than content that someone with trauma would want to be warned about.
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u/kelskelsea Baseball season... with see through pants 1d ago
I like content warning a lot better. I don’t have triggers but there is content I don’t like to read about. It makes way more sense.
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u/UrbanDryad 1d ago
Agreed. I'd like something more akin to a content advisory. One person's trauma is another person's kink. Just tell me what's in the book and I'll decide how I feel about it.
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u/alittlebitograce 1d ago
Personally, I use content note when teaching. It gives folks a heads up as to what will be covered, but with less bias.
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u/Tastefulunseenclocks 1d ago
Oh I love content note! That's an even more neutral way to describe it.
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u/Low-Crazy-8061 1d ago
I was going to say this. I lost my brother to gun violence, so I far prefer content warning to trigger warning.
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u/prettysureIforgot Gimme all the sad anxious bois 1d ago
Yes, yes, yes. Love all of this, and love you, Magna. This is an amazing article with so much good information for everyone. The entire "warning" in the above image is despicable. It's sad that this isn't the only example; I'm sure you had plenty of authors to choose from as you drafted this.
Serious topics should be taken seriously; far too many people are just going along with self-censorship ("unalive") where there is no reason to, rather than using the correct, respectful language.
And more to your main topic, this should not even be a controversial take; the existence of individuals does not deserve a warning. I'll die on that hill alongside you.
As for the author that wrote this book and this "content warning," and the (assumed) beta readers and/or editors that had anything to do with book like this, there should be warnings for all of them: queerphobia, bigotry, insensitivity, minimizing trauma...take your pick.
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u/unearthlydarling 1d ago
Totally agree with you, OP. "TWs" like the one you screenshotted are basically these people telling on themselves.
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u/JediEverlark I like them traumatized and horny 😍 1d ago
Why are we trigger warning people for queer relationships wtf??? And the word “gRape” is genuinely offensive. If you’re going to include rape in your book, at least have the gall to write out the entire word in your trigger warning list.
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u/throwaway375937 1d ago
gRape sounds childish AF and portrays the author as someone who can't treat the situation as seriously and delicately as it warrants. I don't care what social media bans, this is I'm assuming inside a paper book 🙄
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u/Tired_n_DeadInside ✨️fanfics did it better✨️ 1d ago
This. When I saw that "unalive" and "grape" was used I immediately stopped reading the example. The author is not mature enough to be writing about any of these topics with any sensitivity if they can't even use proper words.
They're infantilizing their readers, assuming we're just as incapable as they are to be a responsible adult.
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u/sugaratc 1d ago
Every author handles CW/mentions differently but this is a particularly terrible one. I do think certain scenarios or pairings are worth mentioning (especially if it's not clear in the book description) however they should definitely get a seperate paragraph from the traditional CW/TW. I think it's a challenge to not make it "othering" but taking into account that many readers will assume a certain vision (again based on the book description/authors other works) and will want to be informed if it falls outside of that expectation. It's a whole other conversation that readers shouldn't assume but when the genre overall heavily skews one way, anything outside of that is going to often be unexpected unless listed out. But I think your example forward is a great way to explain the setting without coming off as a warning people think they should be wary of.
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u/iceteaprincess angst makes the HEA all the sweeter 1d ago
I completely agree. Neutral tagging would be a great alternative (kinda like how fanfic is tagged on ao3).
I also think a lot of authors like the one above aren’t putting out their content warnings maliciously, but are doing so to please readers who would otherwise give negative reviews if they are caught unaware. (I also read RH very often and see many requests on the sub for no mm or ff recs. There was even an argument a bit ago about if mm or ff even belonged in the genre or subreddit (they absolutely do), and some ppl really doubled down in their bigotry.)
Anyways, wonderful post.
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u/ErikaWasTaken Does it always have to be so tragic? 1d ago
As always, I find myself 100% agreeing with your thoughtful, perfectly articulated post.
Seeing something like this makes a book an auto-DNF for me.
Someone’s sexuality/the couple’s pairing is not something that should be under anything with a “warning.”
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u/samata_the_heard not a dry seat in the house 1d ago
I mean best answer I have is it’s a CYA against the inevitable review feigning utter and aggressive shock that there are gay people in this book.
I think maybe a solution would be to introduce and normalize a “content awareness” section. Not phrased as a warning, but more like…hey, there are men fucking men in this book, just a heads up. If you don’t like that, don’t read this book. I’ve read a lot of these “warnings” that are actually just for awareness.
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u/lumpyspacejams 1d ago
Please, just call it 'rape' and 'murder'. You're writing a book, not making a Tiktok. If you can't even say the words, how is anyone going to trust in your ability to write them thoughtfully and competently? You can even use noncon, if you're using dubcon as well, for distinction, but legit you can say murder on prime time TV on ABC, you're not going to get censored on Amazon for warning people that bad guys die.
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u/Ok-Philosophy-7095 1d ago
Just shows how noob the writing skill is. Even wattpad has better quality than this.
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u/OkMedium9927 1d ago
Are you in law school? if not, consider it. This is the best IRAC I’ve seen in a while lol.
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u/Sternigu 1d ago
Probably trying to prevent mad one star reviews from catholic karens who will get a heart attack when seeing a rainbow and thuse losing money. As a bi woman I cant really blame her
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u/ivys-poison Ali Hazelwood Apologist 1d ago
Anyway, when authors don't have a bad take (ie. GAY PEOPLE OH NO!), I love content warnings! Content warnings gave me a heads up that I was about to watch a movie containing triggering material (for me) and I was able to decide to shleve it for later.
I love the autonomy content warnings give me.
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u/killJoytrinity8 ✨ reading content that's displeasing to god ✨🙏🏼 1d ago
People really out there writing explicit stuff and using TikTok adult-kindergarten language, like ???? that's so pathetic!
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u/ergaster8213 Abducted by aliens – don’t save me 1d ago
I'm not reading anything from an author who can't type out actual words.
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u/ivys-poison Ali Hazelwood Apologist 1d ago
Including queer identities in a content warning is an instant "do not read anything from this author for me".
My identity doesn't require a fucking content warning.
I already get pretty fired up about "hehehe if you need a trigger warning this book isn't for you" (fuck off) but warnings about whole ass identities is vile behavior
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u/romance-bot 1d ago
Hidden by Kelsey Soliz
Rating: 3.71⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 5 out of 5 - Explicit and plentiful
Topics: contemporary, forced proximity, reverse harem, fantasy, paranormal
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u/Vo1dsInThe3ther *sigh* *opens TBR* 1d ago
DM, I would like to do an Eldritch Blast to vent my anger 🥰
A thousand times this and thank you!
I felt so much after reading your post. Thank you for writing this, I was very much looking forward to this when you stated so awhile back.
You did not disappoint and have put into words so much that I have not been able to articulate why these details creeping into "warning lists" recently bothers me.
The use of unalive and grape make sense on tiktok, youtube etc but in a published book aimed at mature audiences feels icky at best.
And to place MM and FF in that same paragraph is egregious at best!! This is an author I have no interest in ever reading their works.
Once again, thank you!
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u/storky0613 DNF at 15% 17h ago
I totally agree when it comes to race, there’s no reason that should need to be pre-stated.
However as a person with a disability, I really don’t like reading about others with disabilities. I hate the term trigger, but it does kinda trigger me and gets me thinking negatively and down on myself.
If for some reason a MC has a physical disability that wasn’t alluded to in the synopsis, I would personally appreciate the warning so I don’t waste my time.
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u/reflectorvest 1d ago
It’s like they think we need to be warned about literally everything or absolutely nothing at all. I’ll never understand it.
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u/MedievalGirl Romance is political 1d ago
This is an excellent post. There's a bibliography! I've struggled with what to write when I'd do my WDYR reviews. It mostly came with mental health issues in the sense that reading about potentially bad portrayals of mental health needed a warning not the mental health itself.
I think of these kinds of lists as ingredients with potential allergens highlighted. I once listed a character's love for Twilight under content warning because I suspected it would annoy someone. Not my fandom but I have had deep love for other fandoms and could translate the devotion in my head. Not everyone wants to do that sort of work. I tend to include emesis, house fires, and needles because I know people for whom mention of these will destroy their enjoyment of the book.
All this said I have a couple months of half written reviews because I've made it complicated for myself.
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u/hezod 1d ago
I'm, like, old. So, obviously, there are a few words I did not "get" in OP's post.
Maybe because I'm old...
...or maybe because I listen...
... or maybe because I'm not feeling like I have to defend my prejudice...
... or maybe because I recognize that language evolves and that ENGLISH, especially, has a tendency to confuse its native speakers with change....
I don't see the need to dismiss, discount, or disparage OP's entire post. Anyone who is dismissing this post needs to check all their things; privilege, pride, ignorance, and prejudice
I am very unfamiliar with the emerging vocabulary of the young and internet savvy. Thank Satan, my husband is 12 years younger than me, and my kids don't roll their eyes when I ask, "What in the everloving f#ck does THAT mean?"because I would have to actually LOOK UP what something means when I didn't understand it.
For all those commenters who are NOT blessed with a hot young husband who is happy to explain evolving language, or who are not equally blessed with children who they have not estranged through their narrow narcissistic view of the world (so said children are therefore pleased to share their knowledge with their unworthy oldster), I suggest, if you come across a word you don't know, rather than being offensive and dismissive YOU LOOK IT THE EFF UP.
CW (for the planet) doctrinaires, jingoists, xenophobes, dogmatizing, proselytizing, racism, and people who believe Hell is anywhere but here.
I'm more than a little second-hand embarrassed for the commentors who believe that because they read, they are well read. Language EVOLVES.
An example:
The word Hillbilly never used to exist...its etymology traces back to the 1800s in America. It evolved from the name William and the geographic feature of hills. It's a real word. It is usually used disparage backwoods folk with little or no education.
Just saying.
According to a recent poll of my 4 children, aged 14-36, some of the "tictok" vocabulary offerings are seen, primarily online, in lieu of words we find in the dictionary like "kill", "suicide", "rape", and "murder" because words like suicide, rape, and kill have (OH the irony) TRIGGERED mods to censor posts, pull posts and ban users from platforms. In response, the platform users had to substitute the triggering words with ones that would not cause their posts to be removed.
They evolved to survive in the environment they were in. With words.
Op's message goes meta in this thread.
OP is righteously correct.
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u/incandescentmeh 1d ago
I mean, you've covered your bases here.
My most generous take is that authors use "content warnings" as a catchall for content in the book.
When Breeding Clinic by Alexis Osborne had that list of “mature themes” include demisexuality and anal and “sword crossing”, but PIV and heterosexuality weren’t included—
Like here, I've read this book and I guess the whole ~breeding~ element implies that penises will be entering and ejaculating into vaginas. I personally hate "sword crossing" because wtf, but the "mature themes" are maybe just the less obvious ones? I do get why it's not great though.
My second most generous take is that homophobic, whatever-phobic people DO complain about ~sneaky~ non-hetero content, so authors are laying it all out there so those people can skip (or have no excuse if they do read the book). I was complaining about these readers in Salty Sunday. Of course, people like this are eternal victims and never happy, so why cater to them at all?
I usually skip content/warning pages and - honestly - most books I read don't have them. I also tend to use books to challenge myself, so I might not fully get the whole concept of incredibly detailed content/trigger warnings.
My hot take is that we've gone a bit silly with the content/trigger warnings. I've seen lists posted here that include phrases I've literally never heard in my life. Phrases that I don't think anyone had every heard of until they read the author's content warnings. They've become a place with jokes, a place to bully ("don't read if you can't handle") and sometimes, a place to help people avoid any minutely challenging concept that they don't want to be confronted with.
I'm possibly a little bit old school, but I find it helpful to explore things via books. I read books where characters deal with terrible things that I've also dealt with. I read books where characters have experiences that are completely alien to me. Do I always want to read about horrible stuff that reminds me of horrible parts of my own life? No. Is it maybe good to occasionally challenge myself via books? I think so.
I'm rambling. I have an issue with how content/trigger warnings are written. I don't think they're pointless though. And maybe a general content page is better. I'm also concerned about the over-reliance on these warning pages to help people avoid anything that makes them uncomfortable - including different life experiences.
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
I don’t usually look at content warnings either. I’m lucky that I don’t have any major triggers (that I’m currently aware of) so I can usually get by without feeling terribly traumatized if I accidentally come across certain types of content. I also find that it how an author writes a scene makes a HUGE difference in how triggering it can be.
For example, two books can have on-page rape, but one might only have it in there for a page with vague descriptions, while the other might into vivid detail for a chapter. (I’ve been able to stomach the former, but I’ve had to DNF the later.) For me, it’s helpful to know the general subgenre of the book (i.e. dark romance with morally-grey MCs), so that I can mentally prepare myself. Then, I deal with the problematic content as it comes (and DNF if I’m really bothered by it).
However, I still recognize the importance of having content warnings for topics like rape, sexual assault, and self-harm. I think the issue is, like you said, that some authors have gotten kind of silly about the content warnings. Some of them become a list 2+ pages long, listing every little thing imaginable. And, like the joke warnings, I think it ends up undermining the actual purpose of them (to give a heads-up about potentially traumatizing issues).
As for challenging yourself via books, I think that only works when the book is written with care. There’s a lot of haphazardly written books that throw around darker themes and heavy issues without giving them their proper weight. I once read a really angsty book that featured a FMC who self-harmed. The self-harm scenes were written so intensely, but it all ended up being resolved kinda quickly by true love or whatever. It made me feel really uncomfortable. But, I’ve read similar storylines in 2 other books that were much more OTT and less angsty, and it read more like fantasy, and I could see how it might feel healing.
So, yeah, it depends on how books are written and how issues are presented, and I think people have a right to decide which books to challenge themselves with, and authors should respect that by writing proper content warnings that don’t stigmatize different ways of life.
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u/Unusual-Molasses5633 1d ago
The WAY I flashed back to reading fic in the early 2000s and the giant 'SLASH! THAT MEANS BOYKISSING! DON'T LIKE DON'T READ!' warnings of the time because you WOULD get yelled at if you didn't.
FFS, author, it's 2025.
Also, 'unaliving' and 'grape' do not make me very confident of the author's ability to handle the topics in question.
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u/xdianamoonx TBR pile is out of control 1d ago
If I had money I'd award tis post (and a few thoughtful comments that add to it~) Thank you for taking everything in my brain and putting it out in a coherent way where I can point and be like "see! this is what i mean!" <3
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u/Most-Okay-Novelist BDSM & erotica 1d ago
I’m not reading all that, but if I saw that in a book I wouldn’t read it. The unalive and gRape stuff alone is a turn off
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u/romance-bot 1d ago
Donation Clinic by Alexis B. Osborne, Lindsay York
Rating: 3.66⭐️ out of 5⭐️
Steam: 5 out of 5 - Explicit and plentiful
Topics: contemporary, poly (3+ people), breeding, omegaverse, bisexuality
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u/SoNotMyDayJob 15h ago
100% agree. Thank you for saying, and clarifying, what so many of us have thought. I’m not going to post the rest of the finger pointing response I wanted to but can you please give me the chancla anyway for thinking it?
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u/WinterTrek 5h ago
I stared at "kid-napping" way too long before I understood what it actually means. I thought it was kids taking a nap
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u/badumbatsss 23h ago
I... don't understand, sorry. The image you posted, while dumb, obviously, says nothing about queer identities or ethnicities or any of the themes you mentioned.
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u/SoNotMyDayJob 15h ago
I think this may have been a rant/post where OP was referring to the general over&mis- use of content/trigger warnings. OP also clarified the appropriate terminology that should be used, and is frequently omitted in said “warnings.”
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u/MishouMai 1d ago edited 1d ago
I disagree. You yourself said that content warnings don't equal trigger warnings. If the purpose of a content warning is to let people know what a book contains so that they can choose whether to read it or not, I think it's totally fair to include MM and FF so that those who don't want to read it can choose to opt out. Same with religious content in general (So not just warnings for non-Christian religions.) and people who want to avoid that. Yeah it's not inherently mature, sensative, or triggering (Though I'd argue religious content can be triggering to those who've had bad experiences. I'm specifically thinkig about Christian experiences.), but it's still content people might not want to read.
So yeah, I do think MM, FF, and their permutations and religious content should be warned about if the author is going to include content warnings. They should not be described as possible trigger though unless the religious content is written in such a way that it could be seen as triggering (And I specify religous content because MM and FF shouldn't be equated to triggering content at all.). Ethnicities, disibilities (Unless written in a way that can be triggering), and non-standard sexual practices not so much.
Frankly from your example I'm more bothered by the use of 'unaliving' and 'grape'. Dubcon and noncon are bad enough though they at least get across the fact that the sexual content is nonconsensual. But if you can't even say the words 'kill', 'murder', etc. or 'rape' you should not be writing about it.
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u/Jemhao 1d ago
Did you see the part of the post that talked about tagging and listing? It’s mentioned as a way to address the exact concerns that you’re talking about:
Neutral Discoverability > Warning for Identities
"But I still think you should be told what's inside a book! I have personal bad experiences with [things here]!"
That's why tagging and listing identities, configurations, religions, intimacies, and ethnicities is the best neutral and inclusive way for discoverability of elements.
And then they go on to give a bunch of examples of what that could look like.
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u/MishouMai 1d ago
I read it. I still disagree for the reasons I stated in my comment. If the purpose of a Content Warning is to let people know what a book contains so that they can choose whether to read it or not then warning for MM, FF, etc. is entirely appropriate so that those who don't want to read it can skip it.
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t think OP is arguing that books/authors need to eliminate giving out information like sex pairings. I think the issue is framing certain pairings as problematic or needing more warning about than others (i.e. assuming M/F pairings is the default and most acceptable for everyone).
Content warnings (CWs) are a broad umbrella about possibly sensitive topics and intense material. At its core, they are content that needs to be warned about.
By this definition (from OPs post), to include information about the appearance of MM or FF scenes implies that those scenes are “sensitive” or “intense material” to be warned about. As OP mentioned, it further marginalizes already marginalized groups by saying these pairings are inherently “other” or upsetting enough that they require a warning.
It’s completely fine to prefer books with M/F pairings. We’re all entitled to our own preferences. And like you, I also appreciate authors providing information about things like pairings upfront so readers can make informed decisions about which books they choose. But it can be done in a way without judgment and without insinuating one pairing, group, etc. is better or more “normal” than another.
For example, I’ve seen plenty of books that contain an author’s note at the beginning that states the book contains “explicit sexual material” (which I think is fair). However, they don’t (i.e.) specify that reader beware of “explicit MM sex scenes,” while not mentioning the explicit MF sex scenes. That would imply that only the MM sex scenes require a “warning” for whatever reason.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/Le_Beck Have you welcomed Courtney Milan into your life? 1d ago
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
I’m not sure that we’re reading the same definition of “content warning.” I feel like you’re trying to describe “tagging,” but I saw that you disagree with that in another comment.
MF doesn't need to be warned for because, unfortunately or not, it is the default and to be expected when picking up a romance book. Other pairings aren't so it's only natural to warn for them incase it might put off viewerss.
Regardless of whether or not M/F pairings is the overwhelming majority of what’s out there, I think it’s unhelpful to say that it’s the “default” and should be “expected” when picking up a romance book. Again, this marks (i.e.) same-sex pairings as “other” or “abnormal” somehow. It perpetuates the idea that these kind of pairings don’t need to be as accepted in society as much as M/F pairings and sends a harmful message to very real-life people who are gay, lesbian, etc.
As for possibility that these pairings might “put off” readers, that sounds like a prejudiced readers’ problem and not something that needs to be standardized. We shouldn’t have to cater to people’s prejudices.
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1d ago
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u/fruitismyjam attempted murder breaks trust 💔 1d ago
Again, I think the issue is that you are not reading the term “content warning” in the way it’s being defined in the post. In the term itself is the word “warning,” which is defined by Oxford dictionary as a statement indicating “possible or impending danger” or an “unpleasant situation.” Therefore, by placing same-sex pairings under “content warnings,” you’re indicating those pairings may be “unpleasant.”
I’m not sure where you got the idea that I think people are being prejudiced by seeking out books with M/F pairings. I, myself, prefer books with M/F pairings. That being said, I also don’t think it’s helpful to stigmatize other pairings that people may enjoy (and live irl).
Absolutely, authors should tag books with the content that it has so readers can make informed decisions on where they spend their money. No way does that mean they should present that data in a way that makes one type of pairing is better than another. You said yourself that you don’t think that ethnicities or disabilities need to be disclosed in content warnings. So why do sexual preferences have to be?
The OP did an excellent job setting out examples of why including these parings in content warnings may be harmful to irl people. Here is a line from the post to consider:
If you find that it’s reasonable to prescribe specific identities, experiences, and configurations as triggering, sensitive, sexual, or graphic topics or content warnings—what does this look like when applied to reality?
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1d ago
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u/mrs-machino smutty bar graphs 📊 1d ago
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u/mrs-machino smutty bar graphs 📊 1d ago
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u/coconutSlab 1d ago
MM and FF relationships are typically advertised with the book i.e. readers know that these relationships are in the book before they read the book. especially for RH romance, where these relationships are part of the main relationships. by your logic, shouldn’t authors also include content warnings for straight relationships? why do readers have to be WARNED that there will be queer relationships in the book? that is the harmful connotation OP is talking about
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u/mochimellow369 1d ago
I truly can't take an author that says "grape" for rape seriously. It's not the Internet you don't need to censor it to avoid being banned.
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u/daybeforetheday 1d ago
This is a brilliant post. Thank you.
I've never understood why people use "unalive" as an alternative to suicide, rather than the more commonly known "took their own life".
(Also, it seems it can refer to either murder or suicide, or sometimes just plain dying, so it's not a very useful word replacement)
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u/UrbanDryad 1d ago
[There are several people there with markings for Ash Wednesday.]
Ok, I'll confess those marks actually weird me out a little bit. It's just a creepy aesthetic.
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u/RemarkableGlitter 1d ago
I guess I’m an Old but the internet speak the author used is super weird to me. Just use the words!