AoOO Thoughs

[alixtii]

1. I understand "Choose Not to Warn for Some Content" as meaning that, if no other warnings are selected, then there is a nonzero number of primary standardized warnings which don't apply to the story (most likely noncon)--because if all of them applied, and the author didn't warn for all of them, then the phrase "Choose Not to Warn [full stop]" comment would apply and, in accordance with Grice's Maxim of Quantity, the author would have used that tag.

Apparently, not everyone shares this understanding.

2. I'm very uncomfortable with the implication, given by the existence of the primary warning tag "noncon/rape," that dubcon isn't rape. "Rape," as the term is used more or less uniquely in contemporary usage, is a legal-ethical concept: it identifies a certain type of illicit sexual activity. "Noncon" and "dubcon" pull out certain aspects of these acts which are relevant to the needs of fanfic readers and writers, but not to a legal or ethical understanding, and involves knowledge unavailable to people who are not omniscient narrators (e.g., the precise mental state of the victim, and what what that state would have been in other circumstances). But any circumstance in which consent is in any way dubious--whether through the use of alien influence, or power imbalances, or social pressure, or drugs or alcohol, or through not being of legal age--is rape. Period.

"Noncon" and "dubcon" identify out types of rape, in much the same way the term "statutory rape" does. (ETA: Actually, they don't even do that, I think; they measure something which is on completely different axis than what "rape" measures. It just happens that there is an incredibly huge degree of correlation.)

Now, one doesn't have to read the "noncon/rape" tag as implying that "noncon" and "rape" or synonymous or equivalent. But if not, the meaning is ambiguous: does it cover for cases which are "noncon AND rape" (but not dubcon) or cases which are "noncon OR rape" (which would include dubcon). ("Noncon XOR rape" can be safely ruled out.) Praxis seems to support the first usage as being dominant, but I think this somehow covertly encourages the (problematic equivalence between the two terms discussed above. (And both usages are fundamentally redundant, because "noncon AND rape" = "noncon" and "noncon OR rape" = "rape.")

And, continuing to read the post linked above, I'm not the only who has thought of this (not that I had assumed I was).

Comments

[zvi]

But I think the distinction already exists in the language as people use it, and I think that the Archive, as a philosophical position on inclusion of multiple fannish subcultures, is trying to avoid imposing a vocabulary on its users. This is in part because they are trying to appeal to a broad cross-section of fans, including ones who are not feminist or may even be consciously and intentionally anti-feminist, e.g. if Gor fandom wanted to use the archive, they could.

I also think that people can have a more sophisticated understanding of language than you're giving them credit for, that they understand that what a word means in one situation is not the same as what it means in a different situation. Most people understand that the violence in a Tarantino movie is not behavior you can use in real life, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop a movie critic from describing Kill Bill as a fun carnival ride.

I also think that, as a practical matter, restricting any ambiguity in what the Abuse Team is responsible for evaluating is necessary to keep them from getting drawn in to personal vendettas or people trying to kick stuff of the Archive because they don't like it.

[alixtii]

Most people understand that the violence in a Tarantino movie is not behavior you can use in real life, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop a movie critic from describing Kill Bill as a fun carnival ride.

Hmm. Unconvinced.

Thinking about the rest.