Dear Readers,
Triggers are a difficult topic. I grew up during a time when nobody was thinking about triggers or was considering a trigger warning for anything. Nowadays you can’t go anywhere without getting a trigger warning.
I added labels on my blog like “potentially triggering” because I wanted to make sure every ace who wants to read my blog can be sure that the text they read is safe for them, especially for those who are sex-repulsed. Khaled is one of my main reference points. I´m not sex-repulsed so I can only assume what could be triggering for someone else.
But what are psychological triggers exactly?
A psychological trigger is by the definition of the American Psychological Association a stimulus that elicits a reaction. For example, an event could be a trigger for a memory of a past experience and an accompanying state of emotional arousal.
(https://dictionary.apa.org/trigger)
So generally speaking anything can be a trigger. A word, a sound, a smell as well as a behavior. So the variety is huge. And what might be triggering for me can be totally okay with Khaled or the other way around. This makes it very hard to pinpoint where warnings are necessary and where they aren´t.
In the ace world, we use a lot of warnings when it comes to physical intimacy. But what is the actual trigger there? One specific word or the content itself describes something or is it the voice or just the tone of voice?
Trigger warnings were introduced to prevent people from distress reading or listening to certain content. Lately, studies have shown that trigger warnings actually have next to no impact on whether or not someone can deal with the content.
Amongst specialists, there is a hot debate about whether trigger warnings just lead to avoidance behavior and therefore increase anxiety and apprehension or if they actively help vulnerable people to manage their distress.
This is a topic that concerns us as aces as well. What´s your opinion on triggers for aces? Do you like trigger warnings when it comes to sexual content cause you are able to filter what you read, watch, or listen to early or do you think it’s not mandatory?
Yours, Ace
Choose your language: German
(Sources: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/insight-therapy/202402/trigger-warnings-can-be-triggering%3famp, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21677026231186625, https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/parenting-translator/202307/do-trigger-warnings-do-more-harm-than-good%3famp , https://www.behaviouralbydesign.com/post/the-psychology-of-trigger-warnings, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000579161830113)
