The Dangers of Shipping

Image description: Although I do not mention Pirates of the Caribbean in this post, this image of the Black Pearl in a bottle from the series' fourth movie was too good not to use (because it's a ship in a bottle. A ship, get it? Hahaha?). Consider it a bit of levity to ease us into this topic, a metaphor for the constraints shipping puts on aspec fans, or just me simply being a dorky Pirates of the Caribbean fangirl. The choice is yours.

Normally, when I write for this blog, I am eager to get my thoughts out, to challenge myself to untangle the complex threads of my ideas and channel them into a cohesive post. But I won’t lie, my friends, I’ve been really nervous for this particular essay. Fandom is something that is extremely dear to so many people and various elements of fandom culture often hold deep personal meaning to a lot of us, myself included.

Thus, ever since I first started planning topics for this blog, I was concerned that this post might be misconstrued as me attacking fandom, belittling the experiences of fans and creators, or being passive-aggressive. I promise I am not doing any of those things. I am, however, pointing out something that I feel is very important in fandom, something that often gets overlooked: the subtle ways that shipping can push asexual and aromantic people out of fandom spaces.

Spoiler warning! 

The Big Bang Theory ("The Desperation Emanation", "The Locomotion Interruption", "The Opening Night Excitation")

Posts referenced in this one; Spoiler warnings still apply:

"Trope: Asexuality = Childish/Prudish", "Trope: Asexuality = Frigid/Emotionally Stunted", "I Am Alone, But I Will Adapt: An Asexual Analysis of Seven of Nine"

Content warning: Discussions of Aphobia/Asexual Discrimination

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For those who are not familiar with the term, when people “ship” characters in a piece of media, it means they like the idea of those characters being in a relationship, usually of a romantic or sexual nature. Fandom content creators like fan artists or fanfiction writers often center their work around their favorite pairings, and people of similar mind engage with that work. Therefore, shipping is at the heart of so many meaningful fandom interactions. As a shipper myself, I know how rewarding it can be and have made many genuine friends simply because I happened to ship the same thing as someone or interacted with them because of fanfic or fan art.

But shipping, like anything in media, fandom, and life in general, has potential pitfalls and dark sides. Things like “ship wars,” internet nastiness spurred on when people disagree with a particular ship, are obvious examples of how something simple can spiral out of control. Not surprisingly, there are also numerous ways shipping can become a gateway to aphobia or can be fueled by aphobic tendencies. For instance, it is not uncommon for a lot of fanfic and fan art to be graphically sexual in nature, leaving people like me unable to engage in most fandom circles as fully as many other fans do. This is something that I feel other fans sometimes take for granted. The ability to scroll through Tumblr or another fandom-heavy social media site free of the anxiety that someone will neglect to tag some smutty art, for example, is a luxury many fans have that I do not.

Likewise, being able to engage in discussions with fellow fans – and in my case, other fanfic writers – is extremely hard as a sex-repulsed asexual. I have been in fandom circles and groups where I felt completely alienated because all the other writers were writers who wrote and discussed graphically sexual stories. Even in arenas where any overtly graphic discussions are kept to a minimum, I often feel isolated and as such usually end up embarrassing myself terribly and then slinking off before I can do further damage to my ego or walk into any other potentially uncomfortable situations.

As I said earlier in this post, it is not my intention to call out people or pieces of media on this blog. Tearing people down and shaming them is never the way to begin a discussion and I am always striving to analyze, not criticize (even though I am sure I fail in achieving that metric sometimes). That being said, I have had plenty of encounters in fandom circles that have left me feeling less than, mostly thanks to the fact that I only write romantic fics or friendships fics, not sexual ones.

While I am very lucky that my fanfics have received positive attention and kind comments from my readers, I can very clearly see the difference in popularity between my fics and those that are sexual in nature. I don’t care about those metrics, but I do care about the truth they point to: romance without sex is less popular in fandom, and that, I believe, says something very unfortunate for those of us who are ace content creators. Nowhere was such a thing better highlighted for me than a time in the not-too-distant past when I saw someone say that they only read sexual fanfictions and that they consider those that do not portray graphic sex scenes and instead gloss over them to be simply “fade-to-black nonsense.”

Although I have had many terrific interactions in fandom and have come across some amazing people, I know this attitude that non-sexual fics are worthless is not limited just to this one person or one comment. Oftentimes, I’ve encountered the attitude that non-sexual fanfics – and by extension, those of us who write them – are “cute,” “innocent,” or “quaint,” as if we as creators haven’t poured our hearts and souls into them just as much. These types of labels are often used to dismiss the voices of aspec people, and as such they are used in fandom circles to dismiss aspec voices and contributions.

Another problem that shipping and fandom culture can lead to for aspec people is the idea that literally everyone and everything is shippable, often leading to characters that people headcanon as ace and especially aro being taken from them within fandom circles. This would not necessarily be a problem; for example, despite my adamant belief that Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager would be excellent AroAce representation if the franchise would only allow her to be, I nevertheless low-key ship her with Voyager’s Doctor. The problem is not the act of shipping two characters; the problem is that often times I’ve seen people ignore characterization that points to AroAce tendencies in the name of making their “ship set sail.”

Image description: Seven of Nine and The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager share a dance together. Despite my deep-held wish that Seven was AroAce, I nevertheless ship these two characters because, for the most part, they respect and understand each other. Showing relationships that involve respect and understanding could easily allow both shipping and ace representation to exist side by side, but alas, rarely happens. Image obtained from TrekCore.

It is perfectly possible to tell stories of aspec characters finding love or arospec people finding friendship without invalidating their identities – and indeed, there are many ace content creators doing just that. But as mentioned before, those stories and those voices tend to be drowned out amid a torrent of other stories that forsake such character-building moments in favor of the quick pay-off of making a ship get together. Even worse is the fact that sometimes other fans will get openly hostile and aphobic towards ace fans when they attempt to headcanon a character as aspec. I have seen these moments firsthand in everything from the Dragon Age fandom to the Disney fandom, and they often leave me with the sense that not only are our ideas as aspec people not welcome, but that we ourselves aren’t welcome either.

Through these moments, we see how shipping can be used as fuel to erase an entire subsection of fans in online fandoms spaces, but there are times when the dangers of shipping extend beyond the internet. In today’s world where media and fandom are so interconnected, it is not unheard of to see media be influenced by the fandom it gave birth to in the first place, creating a unique sort of feedback loop. In some cases, that means that the shipping habits of the fandom bleed into the media itself. I can think of no better example of this than in The Big Bang Theory with the characters of Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah-Fowler.

Obviously I can’t sit here and tell you that shipping definitely influenced the trajectory of these characters, because the truth is that I don’t know that for certain. But when you consider what Sheldon and Amy were initially like when they were first introduced to each other versus what their relationship eventually becomes, I think it’s a safe bet at least. As I’ve mentioned in past essays, Amy began her time on the show as essentially a female version of Sheldon, and thus they both exhibited AroAce tendencies. There is even an episode early in their friendship where Amy asks Sheldon to pretend to be her boyfriend to fool her mother, who is always nagging her that she should date someone (a plot point which becomes hilarious when they pretend to be voraciously sexual just to make her mother regret that she ever nagged Amy in the first place).

Sadly, these elements of Amy’s character completely vanish the longer she remains on the show, and soon she becomes obsessed with the idea of having her relationship with Sheldon become romantic and sexual. It’s hard to say exactly which came first when it comes to Amy and Sheldon’s relationship – were the show’s writers always interested in eventually having the two get together and the audience delighted in it, further spurring it on; or did the writers notice the audience enjoying the dynamic and decide to progress it along?

While I can’t say for sure, I can definitely say the show frames most of Amy and Sheldon’s interactions in a way that encourages the audience to root for Amy, not Sheldon. This much is clear from the show’s live audience tapings during which you can hear things like gasps of delight or cheers or other positive reactions to moments when their relationship takes a romantic turn. Usually, however, these are moments where Amy is trying to coerce Sheldon into these romantic or sexual situations, which makes the whole thing that much more unfortunate.

In the season 8 premier episode “The Locomotion Interruption”, for instance, Sheldon – in an attempt to talk to Leonard without Amy hearing – tells Amy to cover her ears and then tells Leonard that he wants to have sex with Amy when they return home. The declaration prompts an unbelievable cheer from the audience and, when Sheldon’s statement turns out merely to be his way of checking if Amy really cannot hear them, the audience’s disappointment is just as obvious. Having Sheldon as an asexual character is problematic for a few reasons, as I point out in other posts, but even so, such an audience reaction shows that the fans are not content to let him be asexual representation at all, problematic or otherwise. Reactions like that make it clear that most contemporary audiences have been trained to ship characters and have come to expect that sex will surely follow for those same couples. That type of shipping mentality, thus, strips asexuals of representation and indeed of our voices.

Image description: Sheldon and Amy from The Big Bang Theory started off as friends before eventually becoming romantic and sexual partners, plot points that increased and continued throughout the latter parts of the series. All of this was well-received by the fans, who had started shipping "Shamy" long before the show actually had the two characters get together.

Such events, both in media and in the fandoms spawned by that media, serve as microcosms of the struggles asexual people go through in their day to day lives. We often turn to media as a form of escapism, or, if not escapism, at least something thought-provoking that helps us examine the world through a new lens. But asexuals are not given the privilege of either of those things in most of the media or fandom content we consume. For me, when I am made to feel uncomfortable in a fandom space simply because I do not understand a sexual joke or double entendre, it mirrors moments in my real life, such as not fitting in at jobs because I am made uncomfortable by the sexual humor used by those around me. When I see that my stories are less popular than smut or see cheeky comments expressing bewilderment about writing aspec relationships, it continues the feeling of not being wanted that permeates much of my daily existence and brings it into the realm of my hobbies and leisure as well. In short, the same problems I see and discuss on this blog regarding media (for example, aphobic tropes or amatonormativity), tend to be alarmingly present in shipping and other fandoms staples.

Therefore, as an aspec fan I often find myself asking if and how I can feel comfortable in fandom spaces. It’s not a question to which I have a good or easy answer; in some cases, I have no answers at all. Over the years, I’ve found myself using fandom social media like Tumblr less and less out of sheer exhaustion with all the phenomena discussed in this post; recently, I’ve given up my involvement with fanfic writer circles for the same reason. In general, this feeling of not being wanted leaves me with an unfortunate alternative: give up, and simply leave these fandom spaces to those who seem more welcome in them. That is a rather sad alternative when you consider that the main reason why fandom exists in the first place is so that fans can get together and share what they love. But the unintended consequence is that I feel many of us get pushed out and isolated simply because we don’t choose to interact with the media we love in the same way everyone else does.

It is my hope that perhaps, eventually, that will change. While I have seen and experienced plenty of fandom aphobia in my day, I have also encountered some glimmers of hope – fellow fanfic writers who want to write aspec characters and ask aspec people how to do it well, people who listen when aspec content creators give their opinions about what it’s like to be in fandom, fans who enjoy listening to the headcanons of their aspec friends. All of this is the type of behavior I would desperately like to see more of in fandom circles. I want to see more content creators who respect the boundaries of their fellow fans, and more fans who respect different types of fanworks, even ones not romantic or sexual in nature. I want to see more fanwriters and artists who are willing to explore these types of relationships, or who actively encourage the aspec people they see doing likewise. I believe this will do more than give aspec people back their well-deserved place in fandom; I believe it will likewise broaden the horizons of all fans and lead to new and interesting stories to be told. Who knows? It may even lead to more asexual and aromantic visibility in the media we love, putting that feedback loop to good use.

Overall, there are so many ways allosexual people in fandom can be mindful of those of us on the asexual or aromantic spectrums. It’s not a matter of giving up shipping or the media that surrounds it, or changing it for the benefit of others; rather, it’s finding ways that everyone’s art and everyone’s experiences can exist side by side. I am not so naïve that I think such a thing would lead to a wonderful harmonious existence for all. There would still be fandom wars and drama. There would still be internet discourse. Tumblr would still be the dumpster fire we know and love. But with a little consideration, maybe at least it can be a more inclusive one.