Emphasis added.
Said definition explicitly classes as a sub-phenomenon slash, and emphasizes how they are not one and the same.
Your proposed definition doesn't quite capture the force of the opinion. Shipping usually involves counter-readings, tendential or forceful purposive readings. It can also involve gross misreadings or whole cloth invention. So much so that with regularity the "characters" used in shipping bear little if any resemblance to the "characters" in the source texts. Given the importance of deviant and counter-readings of heteronormative texts into homosexual texts; and, given that there's plenty of heteronormative romance available, it is hard to see the possibility of a mass shipping fan culture forming given an extended and violent repression of homosexuality in the West.
The role of Mulder:Scully fanshipping is reasonably important, and again it is a forced ship, "it isn't the notion of Penelope pining for Odysseus that lures Shippers to The X-Files' Homeric quest. It's the idea of the couple venturing out together and of a romance ripening in that context, conflating public and
private and breaking down gender/genre dichotomies" (Scodari & Felder 2000 DOI:10.1080/10510970009388522 p253). We're unlikely to see directors given this kind of free run in the 1990s, nor self-reflective communities playing with these themes, if it is a one way ticket to public exposure and public violence.
yours,
Sam R.
When mentioned above, another poster noted that at best, there might be 50% gay to 50% straight in the shipping community, and that even this would be enough to quickly sink your hypothesis. Likewise, while noncanon readings of characters are popular, to suggest that this makes the majority of shipping associated with sexual subcultures, because there's plenty of 'normal' fiction already is a complete non sequitur. Who knows, perhaps the fact that AH.com has an above average population LGBT population and AH is an obscure and much derided subgenre means most of our members are here because they are gay.
Consider for a minute the extent to which the illegal, and widely reviled, habits of people who exchange sexual content depicting actual children is policed. Law enforcement has made it a top priority. Civil society enthusiastically aids law enforcement. And the level of publicly encouraged repression of this illegal conduct has driven it behind networks using cryptography and into peer-to-peer networks. And the police still regularly infiltrate these networks and conduct mass arrests.
Yes it still exists. No it doesn't exist as a powerful pop culture force.
State and public surveillance of homosexuality equivalent to that of the 1950s, amplified, would drive shipping as a "pop culture force" out of existence. The presence of a network of women secretly sharing through cryptographically protected peer-to-peer networks force-shipped Darcy/Wickham stories or discussions wouldn't make "shipping" in any sense as we know it a powerful pop culture force. The presence of authorised heterosexual romance fan communities isn't "shipping" as we know it either.
yours,
Sam R.
In any case, I'm about 99% certain you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about, starting with how your definition of shipping is about as correct as the assertion that the Confederacy won the ACW.