Shipping discourse

Beginning in the mid-2010s, significant discourse emerged within fan spaces such as Tumblr and Archive of Our Own (AO3) regarding the ethical implications of portraying taboo and abusive sexual content within shipping fanfiction.

The lack of censorship emerging from spaces such as AO3 allowed for the portrayal of disturbing or taboo dynamics within fan works, including incest, abuse, rape, and pedophilia.

Within fandom, discourse is divided between "anti-ship" and "pro-ship" camps, focusing primarily on the extent to which fictional works depicting such content affect real-world behavior and attitudes.

Pro-shippers oppose antis on a variety of stances, including opposition to censorship and the rejection of notions of fictional abuse affecting reality.

Both anti- and pro-shippers draw from primarily LGBT fan communities and share similar demographics, although antis are generally younger, with the largest contingent in their early-to-mid teens.

[11] Later on, large fan-work host websites, such as DeviantArt and FanFiction.Net, allowed the free spread of work without traditional gatekeeping or the risk of connection to their creators' offline identities.

[12]In 2007, a pressure campaign to remove extreme sexual writings was launched by an American group named "Warriors for Innocence" against LiveJournal, the largest fan content host in the 2000s.

Six Apart, the owners of LiveJournal, briefly removed around five hundred journals in response; this prompted widespread community outrage, and Six Apart apologized and reinstated much of the content over the following months.

The "destruction of LiveJournal communities"[9] and ongoing censorship from Fanfiction.net led to the creation of the Organization for Transformative Works and the Archive of Our Own (AO3), a nonprofit and advertisement-free hosting site for fanfiction.

[9] Tumblr's unique system of post dissemination and tagging both allows for the discussion of social justice issues and intense conflict between different online fan communities.

Tumblr discourse trends towards separate camps around specific viewpoints and identities, creating highly combative "contact zones" where rival factions debate issues.

[26] In the United States, where the Organization for Transformative Works is based,[27] sexual material which includes fictional depictions of minors is prohibited under federal obscenity law, although such restrictions face frequent legal challenges.

[33] Some pro-shippers believe that fictional works can affect societal attitudes towards sexuality when portrayed irresponsibly, but they align with the general movement's support of artistic free-expression and the continuation of adult content within fan spaces.

[36] Tensions over pairings between various characters within the television series Voltron: Legendary Defender led to a large-scale expansion of shipping discourse in fandom spaces.

[39] Anti tactics have been described as appeals to emotionally charged buzzwords; pathologization of sexual deviance, especially kink; and reputational attacks: accusations of homophobia, pedophilia, or abuse to draw support from uninformed outsiders.

Some antis spam gore, violent pornography, and pedophilic imagery to pro-shippers, AO3 volunteer staff, and content tags associated with taboo fan-works.

The "baffling" tactic of intentional dissemination of imagery opposed by the movement has been described by fandom researcher Agnieszka Urbańczyk as a means to attack pro-shippers: "The goal of such actions seems to be marginalization of people who create it or enjoy it.