Tumblr's many gateways
No fewer than four people sent me little messages about Tumblr removing its adult content after December 17. The laments had been long and loud all day on social media, from people in various marginalised groups, as well as those who were just mourning the end of an era, and on that score I have nothing to add. There are some great reads exploring all sorts of ideas out there — seek them out.
The thing about the messages I got: they were all from women. And they all expressed the same thing: Tumblr had been for them (and for me) a really soft and accessible entryway to pornography (and by extension our own sexualities), and navigating that world without Tumblr's very specific hand-holding left us more than a little sad. That's it. That's the whole thing.
I could wang on about how we first stumbled upon those smutty black and white gifsets back in the day, and intrigued, followed them to their original sources. I could go long on how we all learned the names of the accounts that gave us what we needed but never followed them (instead choosing to type out the usernames every single time). I could talk about the way Tumblr made it so you never had to see the shit you didn't like (raceplay, shudder). I could explore the ways in which Tumblr-found porn made it easier to talk to your friends about sex and desire, without feeling like a monster (good or bad).
I won't, though.
Porn is still a deeply complex (and yet so simple) product of our culture, and just as privy to all the real world fuckery as anything else (see Zoé Samudzi's excellent piece here). Tumblr was imperfect in the small ways (THAT TRASH iPHONE APP 😡), and the massive white supremacyish ways. Tumblr was a blessed haven for many unlucky and unloved folks, at the same time as being a lucky refuge for the worst of humanity. It was not a straight Good. But when it was good, it was sublime. In 2018, it was often the best place on the internet.
I just wanted a small place to thank Tumblr, for what it did for me, and some of my female friends. Whatever becomes of the platform after mid-December, I appreciated that.