Just wanna say I really like all your feminist posts. I ship het ships a lot but I get so scared sometimes to voice it bc of allllll this hate and toxic fandom most from yaoi shippers. like why do people even do things like that?
Heya lovely! 🌼
Firstly, I am so sorry that you feel unsafe voicing your ships and your interests within your respective fandom. This should never be the case as people deserve to ship whoever they want without being subjected to bullshit.
As for the why, it's most likely radicalised viewpoints or extremism. The vast majority of shippers (m/f, m/m, f/f etc) are all very lovely people, but there is a small minority who take their views to the extreme. Said people are also the loudest as well. Radicalised viewpoint is fuelled by the need for power and control because if it's not their way, it's the highway and they will utilise every means necessary, including insults, threats, hiding behind minority groups, to get what they want, to perpetrate abuse. Unfortunately you cannot reason with these people, because you cannot reason with power and control. I stand by the rule that no matter what group you identify with, be it a majority group or minority, there is NEVER an excuse for abuse.
Some people, in this case those in the anime fandom, would sometimes utilise the LGBTQ+ minority group (whether they identify with it or not) to perpetrate abuse. They would try and use the excuse that they are within their rights to say or do horrible things to heterosexual shippers because they are oppressed and stigmatised (and when you call them out on it, they accuse you of being homophobic). We do not want to invalidate their oppression, stigmatisation, trauma etc. We acknowledge that. HOWEVER, that is NEVER an excuse to abuse other people. Full stop. I identify with the LGBTQ+ community and I have experienced a lot of discrimination, hardships etc but I will never utilise this to attack those who ship heterosexual ships. And like I said, no matter what group you identify with, no matter how much crap you have been through, or how bad your past experiences have been, it is not a free ticket for you to abuse other people.
I in the past have made the unfortunate mistake of engaging with someone with such extremist views. It was impossible to get through to them because they desire power and control. They will never accept that they are wrong, they will never compromise, they will never take accountability for their actions. And these people will go to extreme lengths to get what they want, to try and control the situation and to make people agree with their viewpoints (or their ships, whatever), because for them, there is only one right answer - their answer.
The most important thing I suggest you do is disengage from them. You should feel safe to talk about fun things around ships and anime without fearing abuse. I've encountered way too many (because of the vast amount of het ships that I ship) but at the end of the day, I just ignore them or I actively keep them away from my followers by deleting comments, reporting, blocking and not answering abusive asks.
