#proshipping

[dannyfandomphd]

Moral purity and imaginative resistance as influencing factors in fandom 'anti' attitudes

Jessica Black et al.'s 2019 experiment on the correlation between enjoying dark/villainous characters, personal morality and purity beliefs, and imaginative resistance is so interesting when applying it to anti culture and fandom.

They created a Dark Character Scale where participants self-selected how strongly in agreement or disagreement they were with a series of statements about dark or villainous fictional characters. Some of these questions were the following:

"I enjoy films and books that feature main characters that choose morally questionable actions."

"I can often understand where the bad guys in fiction are coming from."

"My favourite fictional characters are morally ambiguous and often do horrible things."

They then utilised the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al. 2011) to see what participants considered important when deciding on whether something is morally right or wrong, for example:

Whether or not someone suffers emotionally

Whether or not someone did something disgusting*

Whether or not someone was cruel

Whether or not someone was denied [their] rights

Whether or not someone acted in a way God would approve of*

as well as how strongly participants agreed or disagreed with statements such as:

Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue

People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed*

It can never be right to kill a human being

I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural*

Respect for authority is something all children need to learn.

One of the final scales participants used was the Black & Barnes (2017) Imaginative Resistance Scale. This is basically used to gauge how resistant the reader is to enjoying or consuming fictional content that contains characters, situations, or worldbuilding that they personally find morally disagreeable. They had to select how strongly they agreed/disagreed with questions like:

Reading books where bad things are depicted as morally acceptable makes me feel dirty

I just can't go along with a story when it violates my beliefs about morality

At times it feels like the author of a book is asking me to endorse actions that I know are wrong

Some things just shouldn't be done, even within a book

I sometimes cannot go along with a story when the "good" characters do morally reprehensible things

Sympathising with immoral characters makes me feel immoral myself.

Unsurprisingly, analysis of the data revealed that there was a strong correlation between disliking or not enjoying dark fictional characters or villains and having a higher purity morality score and more imaginative resistance.

They performed this test in three studies done on three completely different demographics - the first being mostly liberal women from social media sites, the second being mostly younger conservative college undergrads, and the third being adults split 50/50 in gender recruited from MTurk. All three studies showed that having stronger imaginative resistance and higher purity morality scores is directly linked to a lower score on the DCS - meaning that they would like or enjoy dark fictional characters and their actions less.

This tracks pretty well with what can be seen in the emerging anti culture within fandom:

Self-identified 'antis' are likely to agree strongly with the statements from the Imaginative Resistance Scale, and are more likely to score highly on the questions in Moral Foundations Questionnaire that are specifically demarcated as being concerned with purity (marked above with an asterisk *). This means that they are also, according to these studies, much more likely to disagree with dark fictional characters and their actions.

There is also a very interesting point in one of the discussions areas where Black et al. state "It is worth reiterating that the participants in Study 2 tended to be more conservative, and therefore potentially more likely to have greater concerns about moral purity" which tracks with what people in fandom have been saying about antis parroting conservative/puritan talking points and arguments.

What I find the most interesting is the following statement:

"However, moral purity and imaginative resistance are consistently positively correlated, both in the current studies and in prior research ... and are both likely to reflect a fear of moral contagion that would discourage people from identifying with and liking [dark fictional characters]."

This, when applied to antis, suggests that antis may harbor the subconscious belief that enjoying dark fictional content, and therefore being a 'proshipper', is literally psychically contagious. They may view this as some kind of moral disease which is spreading and infecting fandom, which could explain why they are so vehemently against it - fear. This is the puritan Moral Panic all over again.

Black et al. also discuss theories of fictional engagement and parasocial relationships/identification, and whether these studies is relevant to "when and for whom fictional engagement could have the potential to negatively affect real world attitudes or behaviour".

Jessica Black and Jennifer Barnes often publish articles together and have some incredibly interesting reading of morality and fiction that I'd be interested to see applied to fandom and anti culture in an academic setting. Perhaps some people in the field like Samantha Aburime (@rainystudios) are already looking into it - and I'm hoping I can do the same in my studies.

[stealing-from-antis]

it cant just be me who adores selfshippers who are like. 20+, maybe even 30+ years old right. like yall are managing to do adult things and live ur adult life and still manage to find time to daydream about your f/o 😭😭😭 /pos yall are TRULY the backbone of our community and i love you guys so much like actually. your f/o loves you too ofc!!

[huntinglove]

I love you selfshippers who imagine their F/Os as freaky degenerates!

🩷 Those who's F/Os are related to their S/I

🩵 Those who's F/Os are loli/shota/kodocons

❤️ Those who's F/Os are abusers

🖤 Those who's F/Os are manipulative

🤍 Those who's F/Os are unredeemable

Regardless of what your dynamic may be, always remember that selfshipping has no rules! Make your relationship with your F/Os anything you want it to be!

[pro-sipper]

hey! i’m not sure if this is a rude question or not so please bear with me :’)

i am fiercely anti-censorship. i don’t harass people for shipping or creating media for things i wouldn’t approve of IRL and i understand it’s just fiction.

does it make me an anti for not personally wanting to see proship content?

i generally block proship blogs and tags and that’s about it. i don’t report or add them to a list or any of that bs. i’m honestly kind of confused about proshipping as a whole (i don’t know any of the terms and it was explained to me like “these people are bad and hurt people” a long time ago)

Proship just means "ship and let ship", which seems to be your stance. Basically just minding your own and not caring what other people are doing in fandoms. Just don't let an anti tell you what proship means because they have a lot of misconceptions. Or they purposefully like to spread misinformation, I don't know.

But it's totally fine not to vibe with that kind of dark content! Proship doesn't mean you HAVE to ship those sorts of things. Just that you don't bother people who do ship those things. And knowing that a person's ships isn't a reflection of what they want or what they do irl.

[radical-shapeshifting]

anti's r so embarrasing bcuz they make in their ENTIRE personality. like the only thing abt them is wantig censorship, being bigoted, and hating bodily autonomy

[myfandomrealitea]

Honestly you people need to start thinking about fanfiction like a restaurant.

You do not have to order the salmon if you don't like salmon.

If I order the salmon, I am not forcing you to eat the salmon. Nor are you obligated to order it just because I am.

If we are going with the intention of sharing food, that's okay! I happen to like steak too. I don't need to order the salmon. I'm capable of going to the restaurant and not ordering the salmon. We can order the steak.

There is a whole menu of things you can have. The salmon is just an option. We can even find a restaurant that doesn't serve salmon at all.

Yes, I know some people are allergic to salmon. But I'm not going up to them and force-feeding it to them. The only way my salmon can hurt them is if they come to our table and take the salmon.

The only way you'll expose yourself to my salmon and the unpleasantness of eating it is if I tell you my dish has salmon in it and you insist on having a bite anyway.

You're midway through your meal and realize it has salmon in it? Okay. Lets send it back and order something else. Maybe you didn't see it in the ingredients list. Or maybe the chef didn't put it down.

Its really that simple.

[russetfur1128]

People seem to have forgotten that "proship" was the Fandom norm for the longest time.

Only, it wasn't called proship. It was called ship and let ship. Or minding your own buisness.

If someone had a ship you didn't like or thought was gross, you would avoid them. If they drew art or wrote stories you didn't agree with or like, you would ignore them.

There were tags like smut, whump, and angst to tell people about things they might not want to read. And then dead dove: do not eat for taboo subjects and especially gritty fic.

Then people started to ignore that. Younger fans started to bully people because they disagreed with shipping certain characters. Whether it be because it "wasn't canon", they thought it was gross, or they just didn't like it.

These people began calling themselves "anti-ship"

Pro-ship became a label to show that someone was against anti-ship.

Eventually, the anti-ship movement began to die down. So do you know what they did? They started accusing people. Of being pedophiles, groomers, rape supporters, and more. All because they wrote or drew things that these people didn't like.

They began claiming that THEY were the Fandom norm, and that these "proshippers" were the bad people. They started claiming that proship stood for "problematic shipping"

Due to this, the term "pro-ship" is often misconstrued as to what it means. Many people don't even KNOW what it means.

It means "anti-censorship".

It means that we support someone's right to produce art, no matter how gross, no matter how taboo, no matter how "problematic"

Because it's not hurting anyone.

If it's something you don't want to see? Block the person. Block the tag. Say in your bio that you don't like it. That's what they're FOR!

This was discussed in earlier days of fandom.

"I wonder why people would read a story in a genre they don't care for, then take the time to let the writer know that sure enough, they didn't care for it. That would be like me going to a restaurant, ordering a slice of cherry pie, then asking that the chef be brought out so I can say "I don't like cherry pie, and I didn't like yours either." To continue this analogy into its usual fannish outcome, the chef would say "Well gee, lady, why did you order it?" And I'd say, "Are you questioning my right to order cherry pie?"

-Unknown 2002

Except now, it would be like the person who didn't like the cherry pie and ordered it anyways then demanded that no restaurant serve cherry pie because it was poison. Not only is it a ridiculous request, it's blatantly untrue.

[darci-tbh]

everytime I see antis call themselves punk I lose hope in the internet again

I don't know how to say this but policing people's right to create and consume any fiction they want AND advocating for the corporal punishment of "thought criminals" cannot and will not ever be punk. shut up

[hussyknee]

Shout-out to the brazen AO3 smut crankers posting the nastiest, most unholy filth I can only save in private bookmarks. Y'all's cojones are solid brass. The international sexual deviant community thanks you for your service

[stealing-from-antis]

hey man your f/o just laid their head on your chest. yeah like all the tension left their body and they fell into a comfortable silence. yeah their breathing slowly fell into time with yours. uh huh yeah they started tapping along with your heartbeat. no yeah theyre gonna take a nap maybe or just watch a movie w you in comfortable silence. mmhm their voice is gonna get raspy. yeah. yeah sorry man it happens sometimes.

[runs-red]

CNC and rape fantasies, sadism and abusive fantasies are pretty common and are, you know, kinks. Honestly, don't bother calling yourself pro-kink if you're going to shame people for reading fiction on these topics. 

[huntinglove]

"Hey pretty stranger, I think you look cute!" 🍓

Decided to make something a little different this time around (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

The song is Your Text by Sundial!!

[Please click or tap for better quality! RBs are always appreciated!]

[pro-sipper]

"i want more media with zero drama, no tension, and zero problematic characters and i am not joking"

Great! Here are my recommendations:

[vivi-ships]

Do y'all remember when this was a normal thing to see all over the place? Because I do. I remember seeing and posting this image everywhere when I was like 12-15.

[xx-slug-xx]

Ao3 authors, please learn to not insult people and be “morally superior” in the tags

Instead of tagging “noncon is gross” or “not noncon because that’s problematic”, for example, just put “enthusiastic consent” or “consensual sex” in the tags. It makes things a whole lot easier for people to filter and know what’s going on.

I really don’t care that you think noncon fics are bad or whatever, I (and many others) will be more likely to read your fic about two boys who are deeply in love if you aren’t an ass about your morals in fiction :/

[proshippers-against-censorship]

Call me a bad person all you want, but I'd rather write a thousand parent-child noncon shipfics than so much as consider telling a single, very real life person to harm themselves or others in any way, shape, or form.

Real life violence is gross. Guess I'm just fucked up that way, sorry lads.