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Kate Bornstein's A Queer and Pleasant Danger
Fri, May. 24th, 2013 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vassI finished Kate Bornstein's memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger, today.
It was definitely good and worth reading (although to be honest I liked My Gender Workbook and Hello Cruel World way better) but there is a BUT.
Things that Kate warns for:
- BDSM. (Not for BDSM in general, but for a chapter where there's a detailed description of a scene involving permanent marking and breathplay, both without prior negotiation. Note that she doesn't say that in the warning, just that the passage really disturbed the editor, and if BDSM disturbs you too, here's where to skip to.)
Things that Kate does not warn for:
- eating disorder triggers, in particular anorexia. All through the book, either Kate is actively starving herself or is hating her size. There is unexamined stuff about obesity that made me feel, well, not good. There is stuff about how to starve oneself.
- self-injury triggers, in particular cutting. Again: detailed, almost a how-to.
- child abuse (physical), suicide attempts, cults, drug and alcohol addiction. In all three cases, less HOLY FUCK than the things I listed above, and in the case of the suicide and the cult probably something you'd expect going in if you knew who Kate is when you picked up the book, but since I'm listing trigger warnings, well, those are major triggers to list.
- rape. Described in detail, and the reader doesn't get any more warning than Kate did.
None of these are deal-breakers for me in a book I'm reading. I still would have read A Queer and Pleasant Danger if I'd known in advance. But I'd have gone in prepared, and I think that would have made my reading experience better (it was still a good book.) So I'm posting this, in the hope that it'll make someone else's reading experience better.
It was definitely good and worth reading (although to be honest I liked My Gender Workbook and Hello Cruel World way better) but there is a BUT.
Things that Kate warns for:
- BDSM. (Not for BDSM in general, but for a chapter where there's a detailed description of a scene involving permanent marking and breathplay, both without prior negotiation. Note that she doesn't say that in the warning, just that the passage really disturbed the editor, and if BDSM disturbs you too, here's where to skip to.)
Things that Kate does not warn for:
- eating disorder triggers, in particular anorexia. All through the book, either Kate is actively starving herself or is hating her size. There is unexamined stuff about obesity that made me feel, well, not good. There is stuff about how to starve oneself.
- self-injury triggers, in particular cutting. Again: detailed, almost a how-to.
- child abuse (physical), suicide attempts, cults, drug and alcohol addiction. In all three cases, less HOLY FUCK than the things I listed above, and in the case of the suicide and the cult probably something you'd expect going in if you knew who Kate is when you picked up the book, but since I'm listing trigger warnings, well, those are major triggers to list.
- rape. Described in detail, and the reader doesn't get any more warning than Kate did.
None of these are deal-breakers for me in a book I'm reading. I still would have read A Queer and Pleasant Danger if I'd known in advance. But I'd have gone in prepared, and I think that would have made my reading experience better (it was still a good book.) So I'm posting this, in the hope that it'll make someone else's reading experience better.
