Honestly, I think ship is a funny term to use when pairing people up. It's fun. Why not ship, ya know? I ship a few people on this site, but imma stay quiet. :3 ♪Ship it up, uh huh♪ ♪Ship it up, uh huh♪ I think I'm high on something
I have a friend who's super crazy on shipping and fanfic in general. I might kinda hope two people get together, but honestly, I never really get that invested.
I wonder why that is? I only do it with my own OCs though, I seldom ship canon characters. Except WarsmanxKevin Mask, do not deny me my ship, you guys...
This applies to fanfic in general, but because most mainstream fiction is written my men, it gives them a chance to see something written by someone like them (i.e a woman)
Guys do ship, but in different terminology. Where girls ( typically, given that not all girls will do this ) tend to be on the more romantic side of things ( whether by some aspect of biology or social conditioning I couldn't say ) guys think of things in more sexual terms. I've watched a lot of animes and my brother and some friends will usually chime in at some point with some variant on the phrase "They're totally doin it" Then again I've read some fanfics of character ships before...and my goodness people who apparently majority ran by females...you have some kinky stuff in those brains @.@
^I can confirm that this applies to fanart, too. No idea; I'm not super big on shipping and I don't really care who gets with who. I'd only really think about it if someone asked me for my opinion ship X ("X" being a placeholder for the hypothetical romantic relationship). I wouldn't say that romance is inherently feminine, per se, but I've also noticed that the most ardent shippers are women.
Then what about the... Er... Em, less healthy yaoi dynamics? Though I tend to run away from yaoi altogether.
Projection theory. Spoiler It's more comfortable for a woman to imagine more exploitative or even rougher dynamics, if both participants are a male, in many cases. It allows them to partake in the fantasy, and keeps it from being too familiar. However, there is common ground; ukes being remarkably feminine, usually, and there being an obvious dominant-submissive relationship, which is usually typical in male-female relations. In some cases, it's rather cathartic to subject a man to the same criteria and scenarios, that befalls women many times. In short, it's a way of 'getting back' at hetero-normative society. But this would be leaning more towards the extreme side of things. While these would explain a few aesthetics and even structures found in Yaoi, it is, again, only another theory. I read too much, about the most random stuff...
I would actually say this is pretty accurate. Yaoi is heteronormative because it's supposed to appeal to straight women and not gay men (similar to lesbian porn and straight dudes) so they have something to relate to. I have actually seen women who liked really kinky and even rapey stuff between two guys because they are angry at sexism in society, angry at the fact that many straight relationships don't have more 'equal' roles and therefore become turned on by seeing a man taking a "woman's" place. Of course this is usually more extreme as you said.