Why I'm not into shipwars, by Grouse, age 36
I suddenly realised why I've never really "got" shipwars. Or, I mean, why I've never wanted to be involved in one. (I've been accused of ship hate in terms of a certain very popular ship which shall go unnamed, but it's always been about me being put off by the characters being dicks rather than anything else; it's never really been the ship itself.)
You know why? Because I am just so, so, so not on board this monogamy and jealousy ship, and this poisonous tendency in female socialisation that's all about being super-vigilant over your boyfriend so much as even having looked at another woman, always having to be on your toes about whether you're good enough for him yourself, yadda yadda. I absolutely loathe this idea that absolute, strict monogamy is the only option ever and that you should completely extinguish your sexuality outside the bedroom of your one true partner. And men kill enough women in jealousy every day to show you how healthy that sort of crap is in general.
Look, I'm not knocking monogamy if it is your thing, but this mad jealousy and feelings of competition and inadequacy--I'm just not into that. I don't think of sexuality outside your conjugal bed as a *threat.* I've never been the sort of girlfriend a guy would have to hide his porn from; hell, no. I've watched it together with him! And I'm too polyamorous to think that open relationships are a bad thing, anyway; sometimes it seems absolutely impossible for me to even conceive of monogamy coexisting with a high sex drive, and at times bisexuality. Horniness is just something that... happens, and if you can handle that responsibly (which, admittedly, a lot of people can't), it's far better than fucking cheating and lying and backstabbing.
Which is what fandom seems to think of multishipping as. Isn't that utterly fucking *ridiculous?* That they think it's cheating if someone else ships their favourite with someone else? Honestly, can't you see how that patriarchal bullshit that's female socialisation is poisoning the enjoyment of fannishness--a world where everything should be possible? This sort of instinct, habit, call it what you will, came from the times when the female needed a male to guard her nest and her kids and so on and so forth, but it's even applied to fucking childless gay ships! It's just all about mad jealousy and possessiveness, to have shipwars, and even crazier than RL jealousy because there are absolutely no victims if someone else just happens to think that character X looks hotter with character Y rather than character Z. Seriously. No. Fucking. Consequences. No broken homes, no STDs, no bastards. And even if you might be all about monogamy yourself IRL, and find that more comfortable, there's no reason you couldn't safely explore other forms of loving in fiction, too. I mean, that's what good fiction can do: offer you things that might get dangerous IRL. (And yes, I understand that there's a double standard there, because women can do it more safely in fiction, whereas guys can just boast about how they cheated on their girlfriend again, but then get madly jealous for her even fancying a hot actor or something.)
I just... I don't get the bloody point, especially in fiction, when there's no damage done. It seems to have only become worse with this absolutely mind-bogglingly fucked-up idea Generation Y has about ships needing to be "canon," too. BUT THAT'S WHAT FANFIC IS FOR! Shipping whoever the fuck you want exactly because the show doesn't! *sighs* I think that even this canon thing kind of ties into that same sort of socialisation bullshit, too? Because it's like wanting to be married, to solemnise your relationship or something, to have some sort of security. Holy shit, it really is like the fic equivalent of no sex before marriage, isn't it? And this until death do us part thing, where people never *gasp* divorce and remarry? *headdesk* I really don't know if it's because fandom has penetrated the mainstream or if everything's seriously just got more conservative in the past few decades, but seriously. Can we please give some basic feminism 101 to these kids? To just simply expose these patterns and how damaging they can be? (And again, this is not me dissing marriage, but the whole obnoxious attitude of prissy people who want to impose absolute strict monogamy on everyone else.)
There's a reason I write pretty much all my characters as bisexual and polyamorous. It's just so much more fun that way, allowing more combinations and different types of relationships to be explored. I can have fifteen different 'verses for a show where each time, the characters pair off with someone else, and it's still going to be interesting (B7 is particularly good for that). And I think that's fucking *wonderful.* I've always had favourite ships in all of my fandoms, and might have just read about that ship rather than any of the others, but I've mostly just... shrugged at the others? Unless it's been something that's seriously abusive or, as mentioned before, where the characters have acted like dicks because of each other. But I still haven't gone onto anyone's blog and said "no, you shouldn't ship this character with that character because it's EVIL and also mine is CANON." That's just silly. Why not have the absolute maximum of possibilities, *especially* if it's a place where you can have that way beyond real life? With ToB, I'm really lucky to be writing about characters in a society where polygyny and casual male bisexuality were the norm, but... I'd still be imposing it on other characters elsewhere anyway, just because I can. Because it's fic? And because I enjoy that? And honestly, whatever someone else might think about it is none of my business, since I'm not harming them in any way. Wow. Think about it. A world with unlimited romance and sexuality without jealousy? Can you even fathom that?
I can, and it's called fanfic.
You know why? Because I am just so, so, so not on board this monogamy and jealousy ship, and this poisonous tendency in female socialisation that's all about being super-vigilant over your boyfriend so much as even having looked at another woman, always having to be on your toes about whether you're good enough for him yourself, yadda yadda. I absolutely loathe this idea that absolute, strict monogamy is the only option ever and that you should completely extinguish your sexuality outside the bedroom of your one true partner. And men kill enough women in jealousy every day to show you how healthy that sort of crap is in general.
Look, I'm not knocking monogamy if it is your thing, but this mad jealousy and feelings of competition and inadequacy--I'm just not into that. I don't think of sexuality outside your conjugal bed as a *threat.* I've never been the sort of girlfriend a guy would have to hide his porn from; hell, no. I've watched it together with him! And I'm too polyamorous to think that open relationships are a bad thing, anyway; sometimes it seems absolutely impossible for me to even conceive of monogamy coexisting with a high sex drive, and at times bisexuality. Horniness is just something that... happens, and if you can handle that responsibly (which, admittedly, a lot of people can't), it's far better than fucking cheating and lying and backstabbing.
Which is what fandom seems to think of multishipping as. Isn't that utterly fucking *ridiculous?* That they think it's cheating if someone else ships their favourite with someone else? Honestly, can't you see how that patriarchal bullshit that's female socialisation is poisoning the enjoyment of fannishness--a world where everything should be possible? This sort of instinct, habit, call it what you will, came from the times when the female needed a male to guard her nest and her kids and so on and so forth, but it's even applied to fucking childless gay ships! It's just all about mad jealousy and possessiveness, to have shipwars, and even crazier than RL jealousy because there are absolutely no victims if someone else just happens to think that character X looks hotter with character Y rather than character Z. Seriously. No. Fucking. Consequences. No broken homes, no STDs, no bastards. And even if you might be all about monogamy yourself IRL, and find that more comfortable, there's no reason you couldn't safely explore other forms of loving in fiction, too. I mean, that's what good fiction can do: offer you things that might get dangerous IRL. (And yes, I understand that there's a double standard there, because women can do it more safely in fiction, whereas guys can just boast about how they cheated on their girlfriend again, but then get madly jealous for her even fancying a hot actor or something.)
I just... I don't get the bloody point, especially in fiction, when there's no damage done. It seems to have only become worse with this absolutely mind-bogglingly fucked-up idea Generation Y has about ships needing to be "canon," too. BUT THAT'S WHAT FANFIC IS FOR! Shipping whoever the fuck you want exactly because the show doesn't! *sighs* I think that even this canon thing kind of ties into that same sort of socialisation bullshit, too? Because it's like wanting to be married, to solemnise your relationship or something, to have some sort of security. Holy shit, it really is like the fic equivalent of no sex before marriage, isn't it? And this until death do us part thing, where people never *gasp* divorce and remarry? *headdesk* I really don't know if it's because fandom has penetrated the mainstream or if everything's seriously just got more conservative in the past few decades, but seriously. Can we please give some basic feminism 101 to these kids? To just simply expose these patterns and how damaging they can be? (And again, this is not me dissing marriage, but the whole obnoxious attitude of prissy people who want to impose absolute strict monogamy on everyone else.)
There's a reason I write pretty much all my characters as bisexual and polyamorous. It's just so much more fun that way, allowing more combinations and different types of relationships to be explored. I can have fifteen different 'verses for a show where each time, the characters pair off with someone else, and it's still going to be interesting (B7 is particularly good for that). And I think that's fucking *wonderful.* I've always had favourite ships in all of my fandoms, and might have just read about that ship rather than any of the others, but I've mostly just... shrugged at the others? Unless it's been something that's seriously abusive or, as mentioned before, where the characters have acted like dicks because of each other. But I still haven't gone onto anyone's blog and said "no, you shouldn't ship this character with that character because it's EVIL and also mine is CANON." That's just silly. Why not have the absolute maximum of possibilities, *especially* if it's a place where you can have that way beyond real life? With ToB, I'm really lucky to be writing about characters in a society where polygyny and casual male bisexuality were the norm, but... I'd still be imposing it on other characters elsewhere anyway, just because I can. Because it's fic? And because I enjoy that? And honestly, whatever someone else might think about it is none of my business, since I'm not harming them in any way. Wow. Think about it. A world with unlimited romance and sexuality without jealousy? Can you even fathom that?
I can, and it's called fanfic.