I don't think that Helen could have written anything in her author notes that would have prepared you for the negative responses of the readers in the following comments, comments that Helen was not responsible for. If you're saying that Helen should have said, "This is a slam against Xanthe and I invite you all to join me in slamming Xanthe in the comments to this story!" so you could have known that was what it was about and what you were going to see in the comments, then you're barking up entirely the wrong tree. That was NOT the intended purpose of this story. Commenters saying that they thought it was, if there were any, do not make that so. I don't know what you think Helen should have said that would have made everything okay for you if you're convinced that the purpose behind the story was nefarious to begin with. It wasn't, so there was no reason that she should have included disclaimers saying that it was, regardless of what the commenters had to say. Period.

In discussion, it would have made your stance much easier to understand if you had said, up front, that it wasn't that you couldn't see the discussed themes in the story but that you didn't want to because you couldn't get past your discomfort with certain elements in the story. You didn't like thinking the story was written to slam Xanthe, and you didn't like the portrayal of D/s in Helen's imaginary society. If you had said that instead of repeating "I don't see it" when you really meant "I don't care about those themes because these issues have invalidated the story for me", then people would have understood that. You didn't, and people were confused. Be upfront about your biases and express them as clearly as you can and people will know how to engage with you and not become so frustrated. You have valid and interesting points, but you weren't making them in a way anyone could understand, so people were becoming annoyed, and so were you.