Female presenting nipples for when your trying to using inclusive language to uphold oppressive standards.
— Marissa Louise (@marissadraws) December 3, 2018
NOTE: For all latest, breaking news related to Tumblr adult content ban as well as its alternatives, head here.
Recently, when popular American cartoonist Liz Climo (of The Simpsons fame) shared how her comics got caught up in the Tumblr adult content ban, The Verge’s managing editor couldn’t hold themselves from saying that Tumblr’s porn filter is irreparably broken.
https://twitter.com/chillmage/status/1083447892650668033
God knows how many times we have highlighted how bad the censoring algorithm is. There are several examples that show a lot is wrong with what Tumblr is doing. To name a few, posts are being wrongly flagged, users are finding loopholes in the way Tumblr is censoring posts, reviews of the Tumblr app are allegedly being manipulated, and Tumblr’s own examples of allowed adult content got flagged.
While Tumblr’s implementation of the ban has left a very large number of people annoyed, we have now stumbled upon someone whose blog post about nipple drawings has manged to survive this apocalypse.
You know what’s hilarious about tumblr’s ban on the nipple? My tutorial about drawing nipples that has over 25k reblogs is still up on the site???
You know what's hilarious about tumblr's ban on the nipple? My tutorial about drawing nipples that has over 25k reblogs is still up on the site??? https://t.co/fOpiiZ2lkP
— Ovens (@ButtOven) January 11, 2019
Just click on the link in the tweet to see the tutorial. For its part, here’s what Tumblr’s new Community Guidelines say:
Don’t upload images, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples — this includes content that is so photorealistic that it could be mistaken for featuring real-life humans (nice try, though). Certain types of artistic, educational, newsworthy, or political content featuring nudity are fine
It’s hard to say whether Tumblr’s censoring bots are yet to scan this tutorial or have already given it a green signal. But one thing is for sure that among all the ongoing mess currently on Tumblr, wherein even floppy disk photos have been flagged, this comes as a pleasant surprise.
What does ‘female-presenting nipples’ even mean?
This has been a big question ever since Tumblr used the term in their official announcement and subsequently in their new community guidelines. Tumblr has even faced a sort of backlash over the term.
Tumblr is banning "female-presenting nipples" starting in two weeks, according to this memo put out by a 17th century pilgrim who was just put in charge of their content moderation policy. https://t.co/WBCuJwF1rK
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) December 3, 2018
I don’t care about Tumblr because I barely use it, but the idea that “female-presenting nipples” are inherently sexual and indecent really pisses me off pic.twitter.com/fd8Eej5CYv
— Newtsoda Dee (@DeeNewtsoda) December 3, 2018
dear tumblr artists: don't forget to put mustaches on your nipples starting Dec 17th
— bletchley punk (@alicegoldfuss) December 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/Lizzieandstuff/status/1069706977721237504
I never have understood why guys can go shirtless but women can't. The only reason i can assume is that men made rhose laws cause they can't handle seeing womens breasts without getting turned on. Think Pence and Mother, right?
— Judes (@Judy577599) December 3, 2018
The number of famous paintings that will be banned is quite high.
— Yellow Dog Democrat (@Yellow_Dog1959) December 4, 2018
But who cares about art anymore. Stem is the only thing worth studying.
“Female presenting nipples” has me confused. Is it nipples of female presenters, are the nipples the presenters in some weird puppet show or are we just talking getting banned because it’s cold in the room?
— CunningSmile (@CunningSmi1e) December 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/NaturallyLexi27/status/1069662462734155776
https://twitter.com/dondrapershadow/status/1069652318298271749
If you remember, we published our analysis on this sometime back. Basically, we were able to spot something which we feel could be a potential reason why Tumblr went for such a term.
Leaving aside the debate on why the ban is only on female nipples and not male nipples, the bone of contention here is the use of the word ‘presenting’. A Twitter user shed some light on the matter by saying:
i definitely feel like they added “presenting” following @raindovemodel going head to head with Instagram over gender identity
https://twitter.com/babesapienne/status/1069837697831788544
To which Rain Dove (whose Twitter bio describes them as Gender Capitalist- in fashion, film and activism) replied in affirmative.
Yes they did. Everyone freaked out at the loophole which resulted in IG being forced to allow me to keep up my topless photos or risk breaking the user agreement contract I had entered into with them
Yes they did. Everyone freaked out at the loophole which resulted in IG being forced to allow me to keep up my topless photos or risk breaking the user agreement contract I had entered into with them. But now we can take on Twitter and say WHAT DOES FEMALE LOOK LIKE. define it.
— Rain Dove (@raindovemodel) December 4, 2018
To give you some context, earlier this year, after Instagram – which doesn’t allow photos of female nipples – removed a topless photo Rain Dove shared through their account, the activist called out the company for breaching the user agreement saying they are not female.
Following which, when Rain re-shared the same photo and it was reported to Instagram again, the company refused to take action saying it does not violate Instagram’s community guidelines.
So it’s possible that Tumblr used the term ‘female-presenting nipples’ in order to avoid any such back clash. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
NOTE: PiunikaWeb has covered in detail the Tumblr adult content ban as well as the platform’s alternatives, check out all updates here.
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