the bility dio ad once

what you got from the OP was willfully decontextualized misinformation that served their point.

in reality, ao3 was created in response to a series of events on livejournal and fanfiction.net that brought to light the necessity for a fan-run, fan-owned transformative fiction hosting site where corporate TOS rules could not be manipulated by anyone with a right-wing, racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic agenda to get fanworks removed or communities taken down. which, at the time, was a real and ongoing problem on livejournal. 

you should take a look at their TOS. you might find it enlightening.

secondly, what i find troubling about this question is your use of language like “condones” and “promotes.” it’s all well and good to say “i think fiction with those themes are okay as long as they don’t condone or promote it,” but what does that actually mean? how is that enforced? the miller test and “i know it when i see it” aren’t applicable here. the majority of fiction that explores themes like rape and abuse doesn’t exist on a binary scale of “condemns” vs. “condones.” how do you enforce the “your fic must explicitly condemn X theme” rule? do the characters need to deliver an aesop’s fables-type moral at the end of the story? can i write an absolutely sickening story of rape and abuse for 18,000 words, then turn around and have the good fairy from little bunny foo foo come along and bop them on the head and turn them into goons and have that fit within the parameters of “not condoning it”? can i write something that explores the obviously warped and immoral decision-making and justifications of behavior of an abuser, and trust the audience to be able to differentiate between the character’s delusions and what is presented as reality around him, and have that taken down for “condoning” behavior i actually set out to condemn because nobody ever tells the guy off? does it’s always sunny in philadelphia condone everything its characters have ever done because they never actually learn a lesson from it? did breaking bad condone murder and drug kingpinnery because it got you to empathize, often against your will or judgment, with walter white?

it’s great to say “fiction that condones these themes shouldn’t be allowed or defended.” in theory. just like it’s great to say “we’re gonna break up the big banks and give everyone free college.” it’s appealing, but unless you have a meticulously detailed plan of action, it doesn’t work. and the thing is, there is no framework for regulating content on ao3 that would not inevitably be used by people with either bigoted beliefs or personal grudges to get other people’s innocuous work removed without merit. when you start implementing limitations to free and inclusive expression, people can and will manipulate those limitations to cause harm to others. 

look. i understand where your question is coming from and i’m not trying to make fun of you, but let me give you a little more context about myself. my parents are from the former soviet union, and although their parenting methods were not perfect, they raised me with a deep respect and adulation for the american constitutional right to free speech. i am to the first amendment what NRA members are to the second. i care VERY deeply about the freedom and protection of the press, about the freedom and protection of young people’s creative expression (don’t get me started on zero-tolerance policies that had high schools expelling teens for writing mildly violent fiction in the wake of columbine), and so forth. are there themes in fiction that trouble, trigger, or upset me? yeah, of course. but my sensibilities lie on an infinite plane with everyone else’s in the world. the specific rubric of themes that i find deeply offensive and upsetting, and the degrees to which they upset me, are unique only to me. which is why, in a situation like ao3′s, i really believe that their system – in which content that does not violate some other policy will not be removed, but the content you post must be properly warned for and tagged – is the most pragmatic approach to handling a plurality of personal moral and ethical codes and beliefs. 

If the aesthetic doesn’t appeal to you, or if you feel the characters don’t have chemistry, or if they don’t have the kind of chemistry that attracts you, or if they fall into common tropes you dislike–SAY THAT!

You don’t have to paint two consenting adults as being in an abusive, pedophilic relationship as some kind of an excuse (that’s honestly really offensive). You can just not like a ship for entirely mundane, personal reasons.

Not every ship you hate has to be pedophilic or abusive or [insert other hot-button topic here]. It can just not appeal to you, and that’s fine. There are loads of ships that just don’t appeal to me, and you don’t see me trying to paint them as horribly abusive to explain myself.

Y’all are too young to even be on the 18+ blogs you’re harassing let alone trying to tell people how to handle their sexual fantasies

Exploring sexuality is all well and good at your age but you don’t magically become an expert at sex when you’re barely old enough to have even been allowed on Tumblr in the first place

also sorry you’re wrong

if someone is DOING gross terrible shit, then call the cops, because that’s illegal and yes, that should absolutely be stopped. but reading fiction or shipping a pairing that you personally dislike isn’t illegal and it’s not your business what other people ship or why. again, there’s NO excuse for harassing and bullying people online. friendly reminder that many people use fiction to deal with their own trauma, and you don’t know who is using it this way. also it’s no one else’s damn business if they are. no one has to present their victim or survivor credentials to get some random sjw’s permission to enjoy a fic or art.

this pro-censorship, thought-policing movement that is popular online right now is really alarming to me. “if I don’t like it, it shouldn’t be allowed to exist! if I think it’s problematic, no one should be allowed to like it!” it’s a really short step from the mindset of “I don’t like this form of entertainment, censor it” to things like “I’m personally offended by gays, no one should be allowed to be gay in public where I can see it” or “I think this religion is wrong, we should deport/lock up/kill all those who follow it.” it’s usually put in the terms of “protecting children” or “defending victims”, but bullying people into giving an account of their trauma after a campaign of harassment and hate, and forcing them into sharing the extremely private details of the worst moments of their lives so the fandom lynch mob can collectively judge them and decide if they are Traumatized Enough that they’re allowed to read or write whatever “problematic” fic they got mobbed over… how the hell does victimizing someone all over again protect anyone? how does harassing people into deleting their tumblr accounts (sometimes the only connection to friends they’ve got, or the only outlet they have if they’re depressed, disabled, or living in a situation where they aren’t safe to express themselves honestly irl) benefit anyone? how does this do anyone ANY good? how can people who do this kind of thing be called anything but abusers?

you can’t HATE the world into a better place.

so to restate my point, EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE A THING, IT STILL HAS THE RIGHT TO EXIST. WE DO NOT NEED THE SELF-APPOINTED THOUGHT POLICE.

“I run an anti blog lol”