Recently, tumblr announced that it was modifying its policies to ban all adult content. So I decided to delete my tumblr accounts.
I’ve long been a supporter of body positive websites. I’m Australian and the idea of a breast or a penis lounging on a beach, or on a sofa does not bother me. I’ve spent a good amount of time at nude beaches, I’ve skinny-dipped, and I’ve spent hours at home without a stitch of clothing on. (I’m not alone in these activities, trust me!) I don’t think I’m worse than anyone else when it comes to my standards or morals. And it’s has definitely helped me develop a healthier attitude and appreciation of my own body. It has also help me understand that under our clothes we are not all perfectly sculpted, have flawless skin, or proportional. We are all different, and embracing that concept is healthy.
When a society decides to shame one’s nakedness, to label it pornographic, unhealthy, lewd or worse, it reinforces destructive behaviors – especially with our younger generations – that contribute to eating disorders, steroid abuse and other issues.
We are born naked, and God intended man to live that way in the Garden of Eden. He created man and woman naked, and in his image.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
KJV Genesis 2:25
Later in Genesis 3, God is angry at man/woman for disobeying him, and for eating from the Tree of Life, and discovering their nakedness. It is clear that the Devil (in the form of the Serpent) deceives Eve and Adam to eat from the tree, and develop a knowledge about nakedness and shame. The belief that being naked was shameful was a concept created by the Devil, and somewhat ironically, most religious scholars appear to believe the Devil to have spoken the truth on this matter, rather than adhere to and honor God’s original plan.
So what does this have to do with tumblr? tumblr has long been a source of shameless promotion of nudity. While there were elements of pornography on the site, this could have been managed through image filtering, similar to other sites. Instead tumblr decided to reinforce and support the idea that the body is something to be ashamed of when they changed their policy to stated that any “photos, videos or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples” would be banned. No exceptions. The Devil would be proud!
It’s a fail on tumblr’s part, but as a private organization they can make this decision (it is their right). So I decided to delete my account and ultimately block tumblr access from my worldview. It is a small thing, and not something that will have any impact on tumblr. However as more and more blog owners deactivate their accounts, tumblr will start to feel the impact. After all, when you kick people out of your space (i.e. garden) then you won’t have as many to continue to support what you have left.
tumblr is owned by Oath Inc. which is a subsidiary of Verizon Communications.
I did exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons. Years of posting — and thousands and thousands of posts — gone in a click. I don’t see myself ever returning.