Happy 6th Anniversary Steven Universe! I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far! 

Slurp.

Why ‘female-presenting nipples’ matter

When I was 10, my mom made me wear a bra and it felt like a punishment for being different.

When I was 10, I took the bra off when changing for gymnastics and accidentally dropped it in the school hallway. A teacher picked it up and said, “Oh, this must belong to you” and handed it back to me in front of everyone. I quit gymnastics.

When I was 11, I thought maybe the boobs would be okay so long as they didn’t get any bigger than would fit in my hand, so I kept measuring it, but they did.

When I was 12, I started wearing two or three sports bras to smush them down, until one day a classmate said, “Are you wearing two bras?!” while laughing.

When I was 13, a boy told me he wanted to squeeze my boobs “until they popped.”

When I was 14, I got cast in a play as an older character and a classmate told me I got the role because I had boobs.

When I was 17, my mom told me to return a swimsuit because it would be too distracting for my boyfriend’s father.

When I was 21, I got properly fitted for a bra and everyone felt the need to tell me how much better my boobs looked.

When I was 26, I got pregnant and my immediate fear was that my boobs would get bigger.

When I was 28, I got shamed for trying to feed my screaming baby in public without a cover.

When I was 28, people asked me “why are you bothering to use a breastfeeding cover?”

When I was 30, people gave me weird looks that I wasn’t yelling at my kid for putting their hand on my boob.

When I was 31, I avoided going to the beach or pool because I didn’t want to have to deal with boobs in a swimsuit.

When I was 32, I got asked, again, “why don’t you get a breast reduction?”

When I was 33, I watched a 5yo girl get shamed for running around in sweltering heat without a shirt on and had to reprimand a bunch of tween boys who thought it was okay to shame her for doing something they do all the time.

When I was 34, my kid kept patting my breast and saying “Mommy’s squishy breast!!” They will never see me express any shame about tits, because I want them to have a different mindset than I had. Yes, boobs are nice! They’re squishy! They’re fun! That’s the end of that.

I’m 35 and no longer give a fuck. I don’t care anymore. As a teenager my tits were covered in stretch marks. They’ve been engorged with milk. My nipple changed shape with pregnancy. Give it another couple decades and my breasts will probably be all wrinkly. It’s sexual when I’m using it sexually. I don’t fucking care, and I won’t be ashamed anymore. 

Every time a policy or cultural hangup treats people with breasts differently, it fucks us over. 

Tumblr’s new policy makes an active choice to participate in this culture of shame. By classifying “female-presenting nipples” as explicit material, Tumblr has taken a stance that any chest or breast that differs from a male default is worthy of shame and unavoidably sexual. The idea that breasts are shameful and unavoidably sexual is exactly what fucked me up for so much of my life.

Stop shaming people for having bodies. 

ᴰᵉᶜᵉᵖᵗᶦᵛᵉ ᴸᶦᵖˢ

Because there is no option to appeal some of my incorrectly flagged posts, and because Tumblr needs to be reminded of their idiotic policy now and then, I’m writing this post.

I have yet to come across one sensible explanation of how the censoring of female breasts, and the exclusion of sexuality, could lead to a “better, more positive” Tumblr. I can’t see the causality at all. The implication that the depiction of sexuality (nudity, sexual activity) is negative and harmful, logically leads to the question: To whom? And how? Tumblr’s hastily drawn up, poorly worded guidelines from December 2018 lump sexuality, or specifically “female-presenting nipples” in with say drug and alcohol abuse, (gun) violence, gambling, hate speech, antisemitism, and racism as something dangerous—the difference however is, of these, only “female-presenting nipples” are actively sought out by Tumblr bots and censored.

I really would just like to have someone at Tumblr explain to me, in terms I can understand, how this censorship of “female-presenting nipples” is leading to a “better, more positive” Tumblr. We’re roughly six months further now, some change should be visible apart from a decrease in traffic. And also, I’d like to know if the people at Tumblr genuinely believe in this censorship. Because who in their right mind can defend these almost surrealistically pointless guidelines, which seem cooked up by an ethical scatterbrain: Tumblr now is a 17+ app without 18+ content.

It’s a step backwards, is what it is. The thing though about taking a step backwards is that before you know it, you start walking backwards and you end up in a backward place.

Of course, we could say that Verizon really is the culprit. And that they bought Tumblr because that is simply what such companies do, buying up platforms left and right just so they can sell more crap to you and secretly keep an eye on your browsing history so they can sell THAT crap to advertizers, but that Verizon didn’t realize that with Tumblr, they weren’t just buying another platform but a community with lively, diverse, blossoming subcultures, and that Verizon only really learned what Tumblr was when the new draconian guidelines were announced and everyone started protesting, and that Verizon then wanted to get rid of Tumblr as fast as possible and are now trying hard to sell it, which hopefully they will, because such companies sure as hell shouldn’t go anywhere near art—we could say all that, but we’ll let others say it.

In the fishing industry, there’s something called “bycatch”, where certain marine species are caught unintentionally during the catch of specific targets. Every year, thousands of protected and endangered species are killed because of this process. I understand Tumblr implemented its ban because child pornography had been found on its site—fine, but what it’s doing now, by censoring “female-presenting nipples”, is making bycatch a legitimate, indiscriminate part of it its main target. (Also, anything even remotely associated with sex or even erotica is hidden from searches—try to find my post on adult film logos.) If other social media platforms follow, the Internet will become one big trawl net, leaving a sterile, homogeneous lunar landscape in its wake that’s designed for everybody and enjoyed by nobody. This is all especially harmful to the people who already belong to marginalized, sidelined groups anyway, and who so need social platforms like Tumblr pre-December 2018 to be taken seriously, or heck, even acknowledged at all. They found each other here on Tumblr when they were regarded as weirdos, outcasts, freaks; they expressed themselves through art and writing, and formed communities; and then they became people with voices.

Tumblr’s new policy itself is condemnable, the way it’s being implemented is risible. We’ve all seen the random posts that its ridiculously zealous and misguided bots flag as adult content; the following examples though, all part of my archive, seem to have been flagged by staff and can’t even be appealed, even though similar posts have been OK’ed by other Tumblr employees. Let’s have a look:

Image 4, right? Breasts. The caption though says “Mutterglück”. That’s German for “The Joy of Motherhood”. This should give you a clue about what’s being depicted. BREASTFEEDING. Tumblr however doesn’t want you to see this vile and depraved act.

Two paintings by Richard Tennant Cooper. Well, you’re going to have to find a better way to depict breast cancer, Richard Tennant Cooper, you pervert, because Tumblr isn’t having this. Flagged, and back to art school. Those artist types, eh.

Or this one, French illustrator, Jacques Touchet (1887-1949):

And how about the post below about John Wilson, an excellent animator and artist; he did those opening titles for GREASE, for example, and designs for SHINBONE ALLEY that I shared not too long ago. Spot the offending image:

Number 8 of course, which is a still from a music video from the SONNY & CHER SHOW, aired in the 1970s. That’s more than 40 years ago, but in 2019, those two ink dots on the female character have to be censored, hidden from view, because you know how those 1970s kids turned out. Over-sexed, sick degenerates, all of them.

Et cetera, et cetera. Whatever Tumblr is trying to do, this is the reality of their new guidelines. Also, whenever you receive an email about a flagged post, the link to it never leads to the post within the timeline even though it’s supposed to (on mobile devices anyway): it leads to the Review Flagged Posts section, which never gets updated and is only partly complete.

By making sexuality taboo again, Tumblr feeds the fear of it, which leads to ignorance about it, which leads to misconceptions about it: and misconceptions about sexuality are toxic goods. Remember that censorship, and censorship only, creates pornography… (Also, the liberalization of pornography, some studies argue, could lead to reduced rape and sexual violence rates. Something to think about.)

So again I ask: what for? How is flagging these posts leading to a better, more positive Tumblr? I’d like someone with a degree in such things to tell me that.

I'm sorry

Boycott on December 23

We saw how taking one day off from Tumblr on the 17th did to their money revenue they make off of ads. We saw how much of an impact we have upon this site.

There was a time where we, the consumers, could have a say in what we wanted from our buyers. We had boycotts and strikes in order to force the companies to listen to us, their consumers, the people who use their products and make sure they can even have a profit. We can it again. We can make sure those companies will listen to us.

We can show them that we are important. That Tumblr will not survive without us. There are other sites that will gladly take our service as Tumblr has shown a blatant disregard to our discomfort to our past complaints. They create this new rule enforcement just for money instead of listening to their users and solving the problem. They do not care for us, or the minors as much as they will prioritize their wallets. They create a new system to flag  "sensitive material" with an algorithm that will flag anything. Then it is up to us to check through our own blogs to do the staff’s own work to get our posts unflagged. When they should have done their own job to begin with.

We should boycott once more, on December 23, to show Tumblr that they should listen to us, their user base, as we are the reason the can even create a profit.

Boycott on December 23

I tried to do something new Rip

Why ‘female-presenting nipples’ matter

When I was 10, my mom made me wear a bra and it felt like a punishment for being different.

When I was 10, I took the bra off when changing for gymnastics and accidentally dropped it in the school hallway. A teacher picked it up and said, “Oh, this must belong to you” and handed it back to me in front of everyone. I quit gymnastics.

When I was 11, I thought maybe the boobs would be okay so long as they didn’t get any bigger than would fit in my hand, so I kept measuring it, but they did.

When I was 12, I started wearing two or three sports bras to smush them down, until one day a classmate said, “Are you wearing two bras?!” while laughing.

When I was 13, a boy told me he wanted to squeeze my boobs “until they popped.”

When I was 14, I got cast in a play as an older character and a classmate told me I got the role because I had boobs.

When I was 17, my mom told me to return a swimsuit because it would be too distracting for my boyfriend’s father.

When I was 21, I got properly fitted for a bra and everyone felt the need to tell me how much better my boobs looked.

When I was 26, I got pregnant and my immediate fear was that my boobs would get bigger.

When I was 28, I got shamed for trying to feed my screaming baby in public without a cover.

When I was 28, people asked me “why are you bothering to use a breastfeeding cover?”

When I was 30, people gave me weird looks that I wasn’t yelling at my kid for putting their hand on my boob.

When I was 31, I avoided going to the beach or pool because I didn’t want to have to deal with boobs in a swimsuit.

When I was 32, I got asked, again, “why don’t you get a breast reduction?”

When I was 33, I watched a 5yo girl get shamed for running around in sweltering heat without a shirt on and had to reprimand a bunch of tween boys who thought it was okay to shame her for doing something they do all the time.

When I was 34, my kid kept patting my breast and saying “Mommy’s squishy breast!!” They will never see me express any shame about tits, because I want them to have a different mindset than I had. Yes, boobs are nice! They’re squishy! They’re fun! That’s the end of that.

I’m 35 and no longer give a fuck. I don’t care anymore. As a teenager my tits were covered in stretch marks. They’ve been engorged with milk. My nipple changed shape with pregnancy. Give it another couple decades and my breasts will probably be all wrinkly. It’s sexual when I’m using it sexually. I don’t fucking care, and I won’t be ashamed anymore. 

Every time a policy or cultural hangup treats people with breasts differently, it fucks us over. 

Tumblr’s new policy makes an active choice to participate in this culture of shame. By classifying “female-presenting nipples” as explicit material, Tumblr has taken a stance that any chest or breast that differs from a male default is worthy of shame and unavoidably sexual. The idea that breasts are shameful and unavoidably sexual is exactly what fucked me up for so much of my life.

Stop shaming people for having bodies. 

uh, if you like my art, please consider :•) i can draw any kind of character (they will be simplified tho)  leave your email/handles and i’ll get back to you asap. or dm me a screenshot, whatever is easier? 

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