Why did you change your mind about abusive ships?? Im???
People who’ve been following me since 2016 may remember having read me harping on about how terrible g/ency was from a psychology standpoint, because at the time my opinion on it was that I hated the idea of the woman saving the man, I talked about doctor/patient relationships as concerning, etc, etc.
Anyway, what I’ve realised is that I was full of shit. I was rationizing my dislike of the idea of Mercy ending up with a cis man by attaching myself to the idea that Mercy/Genji was problematic and using that as a reason they the relationship shouldn’t happen. Actually, i think I wrote a really long diatribe about abusive relationships and how I was worried that younger people following G/ency shippers would internalize abusive relationships with problematic power dynamics as ‘romantic’, etc. etc.
Anyway, yes, as I was saying, full of shit. Here’s what I learnt through my self-reflection.
I actually like the idea of Doctor/Patient Mercy/Pharah. I think you can write really sexy fics with Mercy as the doctor and Pharah as the patient. Do I think that dynamic would work irl? No, of course not! It would be problematic as shit and potentially rapey. But this isn’t real life. It’s fantasy. It’s fiction, and if I want to read about Mercy/Pharah in a Doctor/Patient situation and enjoy it, I can. It’s safe.
Furthermore, I see no current evidence of mass fiction (let alone tiny niche fanfic ships) influencing people’s sexuality negatively. Even if we look at 50 Shades of Grey, which everyone can acknowledge promotes non-consent, stalking, abuse, etc with the behaviour of the male love interest and the romaniticization of this by the protagonist, what you would EXPECT it would cause (more women seeking and staying in abusive relationships) is NOT what it has caused. In fact, despite the hundreds and hundreds of articles about how 50 Shades glamorises and romanicizes relationships violence and the warnings about how this will increase violence against women, the evidence shows it has had the opposite effect: women are seeking and having better sex with their partners because of it. It caused a mini sexual revolution for mummy porn. It made having naughty fantasies okay, and that improved people’s sex lives. It made experimenting with kinky sex mainstream, and that improved people’s sex lives. A problematic book that portrayed abuse in a very positive light has had a POSITIVE impact on reader’s sex lives.
Fictional stories do not influence readers in the way you would expect them to. Especially when it comes to romantic and sexual fantasies. Overwhelmingly, sexual fantasies written by woman are demonized as being dangerous, problematic and having negative influence on ‘kids’ who are legally old enough to consume them (see: anyone between the ages of 15-21, depending on the rating and the country you live in). And overwhelmingly, when you speak to the consumers of these fantasies, they are able to articulate the problems that might be there, recognise how it would be harmful, and still say they enjoy the romance and the story while recognising it’s not real.
Essentially, people recognise this shit isn’t real. Have some fucking faith in your readers. Anyone who’s old enough to seek out and read stories about particular ships (especially ships about much older characters, like, 30+ year olds) is going to be old enough to understand that you don’t fuck your doctor. Anyone who’s a doctor is old enough to understand you don’t sexually harass your patients. However, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with indulging in a sexy fic about Mercy and Pharah (or Mercy and Genji) fucking on an exam table in Mercy’s surgery. Because it’s not real, we know it’s not real, we know it wouldn’t be okay IRL, essentially, we’re not fucking stupid.
So anyway, after a long period of reflection, I realised I was full of shit and a total fucking hypocrite claiming that people shouldn’t support G/ency or R/eylo, or whatever because they perpetuate dangerous abusive tropes when, actually, I enjoy indulging in a little naughty reading of those tropes in my own ships. I was just using ‘abusive!! abusive!!’ as a way of justifying my dislike of particular ships.
So yeah, I realised I was full of shit, I realised it literally doesn’t matter who people ship with who, and I stopped engaging in ship wars because ship-wars as nasty, promote isolation, bullying and general nastiness, and are much more of a problem than who people ship.
Essentially, I became a ship and let ship person. Tag your kinks so I can avoid them if they make be uncomfortable, but otherwise, write whatever the fucking fuck your want. If you makes you happy, GREAT.
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