Shipping (fandom) - Slash and Non-conventional Ships

Slash and Non-conventional Ships

Shipping is not limited to heterosexual (or "het") relationships. In the fan fiction community, homosexual pairings are also popular (known as "slash and femslash" or by their borrowed Japanese terms yaoi, male homosexuality, and yuri, female homosexuality). A person who supports homosexual pairings and reads or writes slash fiction may be referred to as a "slasher".

The term "Slash" itself predates the use of "shipping" by at least some 20 years. It was originally coined as a term to describe a pairing of Kirk and Spock of Star Trek, Kirk/Spock (or "K/S"; sometimes spoken "Kirk-slash-Spock", whence "Slash") homosexual fan fiction. For a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, both "K/S" and "Slash" were used to describe such fan fiction, regardless of whether or not they were related to Star Trek. But as homosexuality became more accepted in society, so too did the terms lose their derogatory connotation. Thus "Slash" became a universal term to describe all homosexual themed fan works.

Parallel to this development, the term "Slash" was also being used in some fandoms to denote fan fiction or other fan works depicting sexual acts with an implied rating of NC-17, whether homosexual or heterosexual. It is likely that this is the same "Slash" term born of the Star Trek fandom, but adapted to the pornographic focus that commonly dominates fanfiction and fan works in the Kirk/Spock ship, as well as the ships of other homosexual couples, allowing the use of the term to spread to heterosexual ships. However, this use of the term has now become largely archaic due to the standardization of terminology by large fandom sites such as fanfiction.net.

Shipping may defy social standards and taboos. Some online groups support ships which constitute incest or bestiality. Characters of any age, even adults and children, may be paired together in romantic fan fiction.