fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2791 ]

[ SECRET POST #2791 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2791 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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I did not understand the concept of "you ship only het ships, therefore you are a homophobe" until very recently. I have recently come into contact with someone who ships only het pairings, in Transformers of all things. This limits them to, I think, three pairings, all of which are highly unusual. I have to admit, I'm kind of suspicious that there's some degree of homophobia going on.

S!B: The entire concept is incredibly sensitive. And they do seem like a nice person.

B!S: I still read their stuff, because I share a pairing with them and they're one of two people producing anything for it (and by far the more prolific of the two).

Some people just don't find two men (or two women or het couple) having sex appealing. And a great deal of shipping is based on what you find hot.

This. I've believed that two men should be able to be together ever since I read about Oscar Wilde in my early teens, but reading pr0n uses a different part of my brain, and that part only responds to het fic.

This.

I know it's really hard to prove your shipping preferences come out of what you find hot and not because you're opposed to something (and it doesn't help that there ARE het fans who only ship het because they find slash icky), so I can only speak for myself. I mean, aestheticaly, I've found slash pairings who look really good and I can see them working at an intellectual level -and some I've been able to enjoy it on that same intellectual level-, but they just don't turn my engines on. This involves my sexuality exclusively, and not my beliefs of what other people should do with their sexual orientations, which I think is none of my business.

So I tend to write the things I find attractive, and yes, sometimes, that involves shipping non canon pairings, although I can only ship something if I picture them working, and not only because they happen to be male and female. (Although I can see why I would give that impression).

That's great but shipping isn't solely about sex.

Except for some of us it absolutely is. You might be interested in aspects of a ship aside from what gets you off, but that doesn't mean everyone else is required to ship in the same way for the same reasons.

It seems like there's this idea that since it's established that liking slash has nothing to do with supporting LGBTQ rights in real life, then not liking slash has nothing to do with being homophobic. But it's true that many, many people who like slash also happen to be real life activists, and work that into the ways in which they enjoy their slash. So it also goes that many people who don't like slash also happen to have homophobic attitudes that bleed into their shipping activities. In neither case does one directly correlate with the other, but sometimes they just happen to mix.

I do believe the two are not mutually exclusive. You can like only het ships because you don't find slash ships attractive, it doesn't make you homophobic.

But I once knew an author who also seemed like a very nice person and wrote about side characters that not many authors cared about and she did it incredibly well too… but then she said she only ships het ships because she's a Christian. Hmmm.

See, I want to agree with you, but then I think:

Would this be okay if someone said "You can like only white ships because you don't find interracial ships attractive, it doesn't make you racist."?

I mean, people can no more control their sexuality than they can their race. Nor do we really have control over what we find attractive.

I know I'm risking unleashing a huge bucket of wank here, but I find there seems to be different standards applied in these situations is all. Not accusing you of that, though. Just saying…in general.

DA

I think it's relative to the situation, and how they say it. If they're stating "oh, all my ships are het ships" when asked something like, "so what are your ships" I think that's totally fine. So their ships happen to be het. That doesn't mean they're against the idea of shipping other things, that's not what they're saying at that point.

If they're stating "I only ship het" when asked about a non-het ship and they mean they will only ever ship het and would only ever find het attractive and it's the principle of the thing, and they won't even consider that non-het ship of yours purely because it's non-het without even hearing anything else about it, obviously there's something going on there.

Re: Fandom Confessions

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-24 21:18 (UTC) - Expand

Okay, but- sexuality is about sexuality and race is… not.

Like, there are people who can say with a lot of confidence "I'll only like women and that's who I like and that won't change", and it's true. They will only like women and that won't change.

But I've never met someone who said "I'll only like people with blue eyes and that's who I like and that won't change". Because this seems to be more susceptible to change than the sex of the person you're attracted to.

And it seems like if you limit your attraction to only one type of look it's more forced than just stating the kind of sex you're attracted to.

I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense- it's kind of late here and I'm very tired.

Re: Fandom Confessions

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-24 21:41 (UTC) - Expand

There was an author I liked for their cute, romantic, PG-13 get-together fics who said in their profile "I don't write slash. No offense, I just don't like reading about these boys having sex that involves fecal matter."

Re: Fandom Confessions

dethtoll - 2014-08-24 22:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fandom Confessions

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-24 22:52 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah it's one of those things that in theory shouldn't make a difference (so they're not attracted to the idea of two guys/girls fucking - so what?) but in practice I've found so often comes from a place of homophobia that it's hard not to side-eye.

That said, I still give everybody the benefit of the doubt first.

See, the idea of needing to be attracted to the idea of a pairing fucking doesn't make any sense to me because I ship a lot of pairings that I don't want to envision fucking for whatever reason, whether it's because they're underage or I don't find them attractive or I just plain don't want to imagine what they do in bed.

Do these people never ship old characters? Young characters? Characters who aren't conventionally attractive?

Re: Fandom Confessions

ariakas - 2014-08-24 23:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fandom Confessions

(Anonymous) - 2014-08-25 01:17 (UTC) - Expand

If someone says they don't ship or write any slash pairings, but then also ship a bunch of non-canon straight pairings, I kind of suspect they're homophobic. I don't think that if they say the same thing, but then only feature the canon straight pairings in their writing or don't write fic involving romance, period.

I guess it's just easier to buy that someone's just not interested in slash rather than opposed to gay relationships if they seem to place "canon" before everything else, because the vast majority of explicit canonical pairings really are straight.

(note that none of this means that I base my opinions of people only on their fic preferences or think that said preferences are necessarily a reflection of their real beliefs. It's more of a snap judgment thing)

Yeah, there's someone in one of my fandoms who says they don't ship slash "because it doesn't make sense." and then turns around and ships het ships where I can't even remember them talking to each other.

Honestly in your example I would give the benefit of the doubt that they just really find het hot and are shipping for porn purposes though.

If someone says they don't ship or write any slash pairings, but then also ship a bunch of non-canon straight pairings, I kind of suspect they're homophobic.

Why? That doesn't actually make any sense.

Um, well... In my fandom, the character I wanted to write about has no romantic/sexual relationship with anyone, male or female, but the overwhelming majority -- overwhelming -- ship him with male characters, including Uruk Hai, and that's part of the reason I decided to be different and ship him with a female canon character but, once I'd put them together, I loved their dynamic and just kept writing them and, in the process, found that het smut turned me on in a way slash didn't... I still believe, though, that in real life men and women should be able to be with whomever they want to be with.

While I think there are those out there that don't 'do' slash ships because of homophobia, I don't think it should be the default assumption for everyone who doesn't.

All the years I've been in fandom, I never have had a slash ship. And the reason I don't write it....I was too busy writing my het OTP. I guess I could write slash smut, that's easy enough. But the emotional connections....I don't think I could do it. Or, I guess I should say, I couldn't write it convincingly without resorting to tropes and clichés that fandom sort of hates about badly written slash.

I'd think there was homophobia in that particular case, just because Transformers slash is different than regular people-with-same-genitals slash. They're robots--it shouldn't be weird to ship them in any combination if you're already shipping.

This limits them to, I think, three pairings

I'm not sure which iteration of TF you're talking about, but if there's even one female character, there are as many her pairings for her as there are male characters.

Still, if you're in TF for shipping and don't even consider slash, I kinda feel like you're doing it wrong. Homophobic? No, I would absolutely not say that without more evidence. But it does seem like a weird way to direct your energy.

I still...don't get it. Like, at all.

Isn't it possible that some people only like pairings that match their own orientation? Wouldn't that make a certain sort of sense, since many times shipping is about attraction and identification*? And why would it be wrong? Is a heterosexual person homophobic for not wanting to have sex with or date a person of the same sex?

*I just wanna stress the "some people" on this. I know that this is not how shipping works for everyone.

I've never heard anyone put it like that before; that makes the difference between personal preference and homophobia really clear.

I don't think they are homophobic if they only ship het, but I do think they may be if they say stuff like "I hate slash!" and actively hate on it and act like slash pairings are THE WORST THING and so on.

Re: transformers, how can robots even be male or female? Doesn't the concept of slash vs. het become kind of meaningless when you're dealing with characters that aren't human, or an alien culture that doesn't have the same concepts about gender?

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