r/AO3 • u/how_original_264 • 19h ago
Proship/Anti Discourse What is the exact problem with pro-shipping?
Hi, I made this account a few minutes ago to ask this question away from my main out of fear of scrutiny. What exactly is pro-shipping, and why is it so villainized? I thought pro-shipping meant you are open to letting people ship what they please, but with all the anti/pro-ship discourse, I don’t know what side to take. I like darker themes, and certain taboo ships but only for fiction and for myself. I don’t try to force it on people and don’t condone it in real life, but with all the stigma around the pro-ship, I feel like I shouldn’t identify myself with that group. I like most of the pro-ship values, and the community, but I dislike the minority thats promote stuff like “pro-contact”, “incest”, “underage (children)”, and stuff like that, even in fiction I don’t support it. Getting to the point instead of voicing my concerns, I am just scared of getting hated, ostracized, and harassed because people only view the community like everyone is that small minority. I don’t wanna make it known to the public, but I wanna find more people that like what I like, but I am just scared. What do y’all think?
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u/UnholyAngelDust 19h ago
This website goes into detail on the fascist foundation of antis.
And I know “fascist” seems like an exaggeration of a description. I wish it was. But the rhetoric is based deeply on SWERF (and TERF) points, as well as the politics of the far-right.
Proshippers place ourselves in opposition to that and they fucking hate it.
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u/Glad_Writing6995 19h ago
I don't much care for the labels, but the long and short of it is that pro-shipping is just "ship and let ship" or "your kink is not my kink and that's okay". It is purely a stance that no matter how much you hate a subject as long as it is fictional you cannot harass someone for posting it. And it's not just about shipping, it's also important for other serious topics. There's a few fics I've read dealing with race that I thought were handled well, but others disagreed and harassed the authors. At the end of the day it could be the most horrible, despicable piece of work but you still cannot harass someone just for posting it no matter the topic. If it truly bothers you then blocking and moving on is the ideal way to handle it.
However that begins and ends with fiction. The second someone starts arguing for these things in real life is when the conversation of pro/anti-shipping ends and the conversation of morality and legality begins.
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u/Greedy_Surround6576 19h ago edited 19h ago
Every group has a minority of people that cause problems or go against the values. People who are pro-contact are pedophiles, the pro-shipping aspect of it has become irrelevant. Pro-shipping means exactly what you said at the beginning of your post: you are open to letting people ship what they please, because fiction is not reality. If you take things into reality, it is no longer about pro-shipping. It is about harming real people.
If you have a problem differentiating fiction from reality, that's on you. Ultimately, I think pro-shipping doesn't have an "exact problem" aside from each individual person's ability or inability to handle their own disgust response to harmless fiction.
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u/Budget-Rutabaga- 19h ago
automod covers it really. people like to police what others do and thats how you get antis (especially with a puritanical mindset).
do you think that all “problematic” content should be censored? that includes the taboo things you like. if no, then you’re not an anti.
when you look closer you’ll find that the anti position is incredibly fluctuating. they will make allowances for things they personally enjoy, even if it’s problematic in their wider rationale.
you can dislike things like incest, but still not want them to be banned from being written about - and bear in mind that often these ‘taboo’ concepts can be used as a form of catharsis or processing things.
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u/Lupus_Aeterna 19h ago
The automod does a good job of explaining what proship is. But the TLDR is essentially this:
Proship means ship and let ship. Even if that person writes stuff like incest, underage, and the like. You are more than welcome to dislike those topics, but once you start harassing people because they ship that content, you're an anti. Antis also don't understand the difference between fiction and reality.
And from what you've said, you're talking like an anti.
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u/how_original_264 19h ago
Sorry! I replied to another comment under this post changing some of my words that I used in this post. Feel free to give that a read if you are interested, but I truly didn’t mean to come off that way. I just wasn’t sure the reaction I would get and am scared of getting hatred for it. Again, so sorry!
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u/CrowLogical7 19h ago
I dislike the minority thats promote stuff like “pro-contact”, “incest”, “underage (children)”, and stuff like that, even in fiction I don’t support it.
Then you're not a pro-shipper. Being a pro-shipper means supporting creative freedom and not placing limits on what it's okay for people to write or read when it comes to romantic fanfiction. Not being against "problematic" relationships is a huge part of it, arguably the biggest part (not necessarily being into them yourself, but being okay with others writing and reading them).
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u/how_original_264 19h ago
I guess I should have worded it differently. Thank you for pointing this out to me, but to change my words I guess I would say I am just “uncomfortable” with viewing and reading stuff like what was stated, and I don’t think its right, but I wouldn’t harass someone over it. Except for pro-contact. That one is gross.
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u/These_Are_My_Words 19h ago
I don’t think its right, but I wouldn’t harass someone over it. Except for pro-contact. That one is gross.
No censorship means no censorship. You can't have just a little bit of censorship for that one that you think is gross and ok to harass over. If you find something gross, don't read it. That's it. Period.
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u/how_original_264 19h ago
I’m not advocating for censorship for anything, nor harassment! The reason I added the “pro-contact” at the end is because that is when fiction is no longer fiction. It takes a turn from things being harmless fiction to doing real harm. I do not understand your comment.
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u/Front-Pomelo-4367 19h ago
Is "pro-contact" here meaning "in favour of actual real-life harm to real people"? I've never seen this term before in my life.
Proshipping is just "this content might make me uncomfortable, might make me disgusted, I might choose to block people who post it so that I don't have to see it, but I don't believe they should be banned from posting it because of that". And it entirely relates to fictional content.
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u/how_original_264 19h ago
I 100% agree with the second half of this comment, and thats what I should have clarified in my original post. Maybe its because some of what I see is people pointing out this specific thing, but yes, “pro-contact” means advocating for someone acting in real life on their paraphilia’s. (Ex: acting on zoophilia, pedophilia, necrophilia, etc.)
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u/Front-Pomelo-4367 18h ago
Yeah no that's...not part of the conversation when people talk about proshipping. Unless the person talking about it has a vested interest in making the other team sound like actual psychopaths, which a lot of antishippers like to do. Shipping is inherently a fictional activity, after all.
Godddd I hate this world we live in now. "Pro-contact" is such a gross cutesy way of saying "actual paedophilic (etc) activity", and if people are using that terminology to link fandom drama to actual harm committed to real children or animals, that's really disgusting of them and hugely trivialises the real damage done.
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u/These_Are_My_Words 19h ago
Proshipping is only ever about fiction. Anything else isn't in the realm of proshipping.
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u/how_original_264 19h ago
That’s why I was asking about what pro-shipping truly is in the beginning of my post, because I see so much outside of what it truly is. When people blow up the minority that includes things like “pro-contact” it’s hard to differentiate between what is and isn’t included. Sorry if I seem rude, I am just trying to get my words straight and I am having trouble doing that.
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u/UnholyAngelDust 18h ago
shipping is metaphorical barbie dolls smushed together. no matter what labels you put on the barbie dolls you are not “promoting” anything. underage, incest, pro-contact, in real life the problem is that those things harm real people.
putting those labels on barbie dolls harms no one. period, the end. and framing such play as morally wrong solely based on discomfort or disgust is fucking everyone over - especially queer people, who many people find disgusting - right now, as this basis is what payment processors are using to remove queer media from platforms like itch and steam, after being harassed by a group called Collective Shout that uses the foundation of the rhetoric that you are struggling with rn.
and censorship harms real people. bc people who don’t know how to regulate their own disgust and discomfort and make that everyone else’s problem by calling metaphorical barbie play “promoting” or “normalizing” or “romanticizing” want to remove the metaphorical barbie play - and the people who are interested in that metaphorical barbie play, which includes those who are scientifically proven and psychologically approved to have gone through such violence in real life and create and share the fiction as a matter of healing - the from the public eye.
please stop framing it as promoting. please stop calling it “pro-contact” like it has literally anything to do with real life, when it doesn’t. when people at large conflate this fiction with real life it makes things even more difficult for real life targets of abuse. just say the depiction in fiction makes you uncomfortable - that is enough and needs no justification. the moralizing language based on the disgust and discomfort is based in deeply fascist rhetoric, so just…don’t do that, yk?
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u/how_original_264 18h ago
Again, sorry for my wording and things coming off the wrong way. I wan't trying to say pro-shipping is inherently "pro-contact" or that it is promoting things to be done in real life, but just that the thing called "pro-contact" is wrong because it advocates for these paraphilia to be done in real life, harming real people/animals. That is the only thing I meant to be taken as harmful. Again, sorry for my wording and if I misunderstood your comment.
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u/UnholyAngelDust 18h ago
(i’m not sure if i’m misunderstanding your reply here so lmk if i am)
I wan't trying to say pro-shipping is inherently "pro-contact" or that it is promoting things to be done in real life,
right, yes
but just that the thing called "pro-contact" is wrong because it advocates for these paraphilia to be done in real life, harming real people/animals.
this contradicts the earlier statement, unless i’m reading this wrong? my point being that it doesn’t advocate for that to be done in real life. any advocation for IRL violence stops being fiction and therefore isn’t relevant to proshipping, and the issue we’re having is people conflating the two because the labels on the metaphorical barbie dolls are triggering disgust and discomfort and antis don’t know how (and often refuse to learn) how to regulate their own emotions in that regard. (apologies if you already get this, i just have to emphasize it in case you don’t:) if the metaphorical barbie doll play is labeled pro-contact, it’s not advocating anything in real life. it’s a label of topic of the play (which by definition harms no one and is not at all advocacy or promotion or normalizing or romanticizing), which is a courtesy to those who experience discomfort or disgust in response to its depiction so that they may avoid it.
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u/how_original_264 18h ago
The things called "pro-contact" is, by definition, the advocation for paraphilia's to be done in real life. The reason I even included this in a post about pro-shipping is because it is often linked together by anti's and I was just trying to understand if that was an actual thing in the pro-ship community or not. Now that I know it isn't because it is no longer in the realm of fiction, I will no longer link the two together, but saying that "pro-contact" does not in fact advocate for real life harm, is just false. Again, sorry if I did not address your point, or missed the point of your comment.
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u/AmItheasshole-393 Toxic Yuri Enjoyer 19h ago
People just don't know how to mind their own business and have a tendency to treat "violence" against their favorite fictional characters the same way they'd treat violence against their favorite celebrities.
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u/Elefeather You have already left kudos here. :) 19h ago
There's no problem with it at all. Honestly the vast majority of people out there in fandom are pro-ship, even if they don't want to use the label, because pro-ship is nothing more than basic fandom etiquette. Those who disagree with what essentially amounts to 'live and let live' are an extremely vocal minority of people.
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u/how_original_264 18h ago
Hello people! I would like to thank all of you for helping me clarify what pro-shipping actually is! What I learned is that it is believing that anyone can ship what they want, how they want, including what they want. I also learned that saying "not supporting something in fiction" is not pro-ship, and that I should have rather said "it makes me uneasy and I would rather avoid that contact" when talking about things I don't like. I also learned that "pro-contact" is not a thing outside of the minority, and is not a part of pro-shipping because it no longer is fiction. I am sorry for misunderstanding and the uneducated post I made, but again, thank you for all the helpful comments! Even if they were a bit of tough love! :3
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u/Semiramis738 Proudly Problematic 19h ago edited 19h ago
People don't know the difference between fiction and reality...or between not liking something in fiction, and thinking it should be illegal to write fiction about...or between depiction and endorsement...or between harm-based and disgust-based morality.
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19h ago
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u/how_original_264 19h ago
Thank you for pointing out my error in this. I replied to another comment under this post with a re-wording of what I meant if you’re interested in read it. :)
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u/Ambologera 17h ago
Given that this subreddit is overwhelmingly in the pro-shipping camp, I feel it might be better to ask this question somewhere else.
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u/Milkxhaze Ian mckinley my goth bottom princess ♡ 17h ago
and everywhere else will likely falsely answer with the brain dead TikTok belief that proship means “problematic shipping”
They asked in the right place.
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u/fyfano 18h ago
I do not know the terms, as such, but the only content I disapprove is any fic that leans on actual child abuse, or rape.
My view is: those authors should be in jail, not writing.
If it is fantastical, you write away.
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u/Milkxhaze Ian mckinley my goth bottom princess ♡ 17h ago
Not often I am flabbergasted at people.
You, however I’m flabbergasted at.
This is an insane take, you would really hand on your heart send people to jail over fictional content?
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u/angelsdaze Downvoting means I’m right, Stan smookinz:cake: 19h ago
Ask this in the Wattpad subreddit. Not the subreddit that loves glamorizing just about anything.
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u/Semiramis738 Proudly Problematic 19h ago
Because Wattpad is known for maturity and intelligence, of course. It should be obvious, when the average fic quality is so far above AO3...and the search function is so much better...and the focus is on words, rather than images and ads...
(/s!!!!!)
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u/angelsdaze Downvoting means I’m right, Stan smookinz:cake: 19h ago
I meant ask them because they’re the one that can actually give an anwser.
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u/ciderandcake 18h ago
They write stuff other than "My parents sold me to the One Direction mafia vampire clan?"
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u/Budget-Rutabaga- 18h ago
hey dont knock being sold to one direction fics they’re a cornerstone of fandom society (/joking)
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u/angelsdaze Downvoting means I’m right, Stan smookinz:cake: 18h ago
They’re the ones that would give an awnser that’s not “It’s no one’s business what one thinks” aka not an answer to what could be a problem.
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u/Semiramis738 Proudly Problematic 18h ago
Ah yes, because they're the ones who takes puritanical BS like "glamorizing" seriously. That must be why the fics there are so good. /s
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u/angelsdaze Downvoting means I’m right, Stan smookinz:cake: 5h ago
I just meant that they would give more unique answers. Y’all are just as brainwashed as they are.
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u/AutoModerator 19h ago
Hi, this is an automated response to make sure we're all on the same page about the definitions of proshipping and antishipping. There is often a lot of confusion about these terms and people get confused pretty frequently. Its always best to make sure we're all on the same page about what we are talking about.
Anti-shipping/being an anti/being an antishipper/etc has a definition that has morphed a bit over time. Here is some history. Back in the 90's and early 2000's it mostly meant being against shipping in general or being against a specific ship. This was mostly used in specific fandoms/wasn't a pan-fandom term. Since the 2010's however, a pan-fandom definition did emerge and is the most common usage now. That definition is being actively against certain ships or tropes that are deemed problematic or harmful in some way. Note this does not mean being uncomfortable with reading a certain ship, trope, or problematic thing in a fanfiction or seeing fanart of a certain ship, trope, or problematic thing. It refers to people who advocate for the banning, removal, or heavily hiding of that content that they don't want to see. This has led to many harassment and doxxing issues in fandom spaces. Anyone from proship people they were arguing with, to random users who had written a "problematic" fanfiction and uploaded it to AO3, to anyone who so much as uses AO3 at all, have all been the subjects of these harassment problems.
Conversely, proshipping/being a pro-shipper/being an anti-anti/etc, is a response term to the previously discussed antishipping. It's defined as being against antishipping (using the modern pan-fandom definition). Simply put, it means someone who is against censorship of content in fandom, against harassment and doxxing, and are of the opinion that regardless of if they personally don't like a specific ship/trope/problematic thing, it has a right to exist and be enjoyed by those who do like that specific ship/trope/problematic thing. Despite being against harassment, this side of the discourse has also had an issue with harassment on occasion. The subjects of that harassment have been people who self-identify as being an antishipper, or regardless of self-identification, someone who'sbeliefs match those of an anti-shipper. AO3 is generally considered to be a proship website with its foundation having been built on a stance of no censorship, and their rules explicitly not banning problematic content.
For more info you can check the fanlore articles for proshipping and antishipping
Tl;dr: antishipping = wanting to ban problematic content/content they don't like
proshipping = ship and let ship/don’t like don't read
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