Pro Vs Anti - Tumblr Posts
I feel like the pro vs anti thing is kind of reductive? Like it's more than just shipping and morality after a certain point, it kind of just becomes censorship vs anti-censorship? And I feel like if it were talked about like that discussions would be easier/actually result in something?
Like I'm very anti-censorship, but some stuff is gross to me personally, but do I think people shouldn't be able to make stuff? No, it's up to me to not read it.
Like, if we remove the whole morality thing from shipping exclusively we can probably have an actual discussion about if people sharing certain stuff does cater to pedophiles or whatever, and the stuff about "it's only okay if you're traumatized" being kind of icky, and actually come to a productive solution? I don't know if this makes sense.
The issue in trying to boil down the current concept(s) of proshipping and anti-shipping to detached semantics is that proshipping, in becoming nuanced and an umbrella term, has voided itself of the capability to become "just" anything.
Proshipping has also expanded to encompass not just fandom and fictional content, but reality too, largely out of necessity because a core component of the "anti" rhetoric is you are what you create/consume. Thus proshipping now no longer singularly refers to fiction and fandom, but to you as a person, your values, and how you behave in life outside of the internet.
Like I'm very anti-censorship, but some stuff is gross to me personally, but do I think people shouldn't be able to make stuff? No, it's up to me to not read it.
This is being proship at its most basic definition. A common misconception about proshipping is you have to actively support, consume or enjoy the content to which its being applied in that instance, and that is simply false. The amount of times I've seen "antis" make a post saying they're not proship, but... And then what they proceed to state is exactly what proshipping is at its core is laughable. Its simply the broader label and some variable definitions they refuse to be linked with.
In terms of whether content created would "cater to" certain demographics... If you want to start that argument, that would only feed into censorship and a sanitized world where you can't let kids play with nerf guns and everyone has to walk around in head to toe shrouding garments to avoid "catering to" perverts and pedophiles. Its redundant to say; "but this caters to pedophiles!" when literally all a pedophile has to do is look out of their window. Or load up Google. Or turn on the TV. Children and children in various states of undress are everywhere. A mother taking her son into a grocery store could be catering to a pedophile.
I hate to say it, but Law and Order: SVU actually has some very good episodes depicting just how truly varied stimulants are to people with active, dangerous paraphilias. Everyone loves to say that pedophiles are only stimulated by X type of depiction of children, but that is truly, truly not the case. Walking past a child on the street can be enough for that pedophile to fantasise about that child. And what is the solution there? Lock all children up in windowless buildings until they're eighteen? Is it then unethical for parents to take their children outside knowing at any moment a pedophile can look at them and fantasise about them?
Likewise, that would still be a moral argument, because you're intrinsically arguing if that person is "wrong" for creating content with the acknowledgement that a pedophile could/will read it, and seek stimulation from it. You're trying to discern the morality of producing something which has the capability to cause, mimic or lead to active harm.
There's also the concept of "radical" proshipping which even I, myself, disagree with on certain levels and points.
Unfortunately, the proship vs antiship argument will never have an actual solution, because it technically isn't a problem, its just two opposing perspectives on ethics, morality and personal comfort, which you cannot force a change in. Likewise each definition fluctuates and is so heavily nuanced that they overlap in ways you cannot simply tear apart and enforce into two defined boxes. You can argue the merits and validity of as many points as you like, but often when someone is tying the issue to who they are as a person and to a reflection of themselves in the public eye, they're not going to want to change to a stance that would be perceived as "wrong."
I do agree with your overall desire for broader and varied discussions, though. I agree that sometimes each side gets stuck on a pinhead argument that becomes a carousel of the same points over and over until it collapses and turns into arguments and insults and accusations. Its part of why I started this blog, to try and help facilitate open, nuanced discussions about the true near boundless nature of proshipping vs antishipping, and to try and at the least help each side clearly see and understand the opposite's perspective, even if they don't agree with it.
There's less a "solution" to proshipping vs antishipping as there is finding a semi-stable middleground between each side maintaining civility within communication, and understand and accepting that there's nuance and overlap between both perspectives.