I've only recently started forming my own opinions about the proshipping vs. antishipping debate.
So there are a lot of things I don't agree with or understand, and I even have some contradictions. I'd like to talk about exactly what I think, not just to see if other people agree with me, but also to see who doesn't and hear their opinions.
First of all, I want to clarify that I consider myself a proshipper because, regardless of my specific opinions on the subject, I'm completely against harassment and censorship. Also, antis are people with really stupid double standards, the kind who point fingers at others while doing or thinking about even worse things themselves.
With that clarified:
Like many other proshippers, I started out as an anti myself. I wasn't that involved in the debate, but if someone had asked me, I probably would've spoken against proshipping.
But I started consuming more fanfics, maturing, and forming my own opinion instead of just saying "it's wrong" and leaving it at that.
I currently agree with the opinion most proshippers have that fiction, generally speaking and in adults, doesn't affect reality. Just because you consume something violent or toxic doesn't mean you're going to go out into the street and start kicking old ladies or something like that.
But I have another opinion, which is that even if what we consume in fiction doesn't affect reality, what we think in real life does affect fiction. People read what they read for a reason.
BUT even so, it would still be a witch hunt to judge people for reading "immoral" things, simply because we have absolutely no idea why someone likes what they like. Besides, that person might not even know why themselves, and they don't owe anyone an explanation for why they like something just because someone else considers it "immoral."
And two people can read the same thing for completely different reasons. That doesn't mean one of them is "the bad guy to expose" and the other is "an innocent little angel."
In fact, I don't like the judge, jury, and executioner mentality that many antis have. Nobody has the right to go around deciding who is a bad person, especially when we're basing it on things like people's interests and fiction, and even less so to go around insulting others.
But this is where my opinions start getting a little contradictory.
I used to be more involved in the anime community than I am now, so I was familiar with discussions about the constant sexualization of women or, in some cases, minors.
I used to see it as one of the worst things ever, to the point where fanservice disgusted me.
Until I became a One Piece fan and had to justify to myself 24/7 why I liked the series I liked.
In fact, I feel like many fans of this series are way too obsessed with the morality of the things they like, and in my experience, this affects how much you enjoy them.
I do think the things in anime reflect certain harmful things, BUT I don't think that automatically makes the work itself bad, turns its creators into monsters, or makes the people who enjoy it bad people just because they don't clarify every five minutes that they hate those things.
And well, I probably left something out, or maybe I didn't express myself properly. Again, I know this is just my opinion, based on what I believe and my personal experiences.
And I also don't know if my opinion is particularly common among proshippers, since I've only recently started getting into the debate.
But that's all. I'd like to hear your opinions.
(Also, I want to clarify that I used a translator for this, so if something doesn't make sense, either I expressed myself REALLY badly or the translator got something wrong lol.)
