Tumblr has a major porn problem – bots, spam and, most seriously, images of child abuse.

But for those that use its site legally, the decision to ban adult content across its entire network is seen as a reluctance to tackle the issues properly.

Tumblr has decided to give up, rather than do as other sites have done and invest in measures to handle illegal content, while allowing sexual expression.

“There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content,” said Jeff D’Onofrio, the site’s chief executive, in explaining the decision.

He’s right, of course. There’s a lot of porn out there. But Tumblr has long offered something different, and important.

Founded 11 years ago, Tumblr is a platform where users can publish text, images and videos quickly, as well as share and comment on other submissions. The site’s popularity peaked in 2014. Yet as its use dwindled, its reputation as an alternative corner of the internet grew, not least as a place to find unique adult material.

Unlike typical pornography sites, which overwhelmingly cater to men, and serve an often narrow definition of what is attractive, Tumblr has been a home for something else – content tailored at vibrant LGBT communities, or for those with tastes you might not necessarily share with all your friends.

If society deems it acceptable for any porn to be on the internet, then that acceptance must surely be inclusive. Unlike most of those other sites Mr D’Onofrio speaks of, Tumblr has been a space where different body types are sexually celebrated, not degraded.

In 2015, Cosmopolitan described Tumblr as a place where women “can explore their sexuality with the support of women without judgement or fear”.

It argued that Tumblr’s design seemed to cater to different physical need: offering a slow, building stream of visual and emotional content – rather than the instant video gratification of sites designed with hurried male audiences in mind, fast-forward button and all.

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Tumblr has been a safe and reliable place to look at pornographic images for more than a decade whether those images were drawings, GIFs, photographs, or short videos. But that’s changing in two weeks. The platform’s CEO announced in a lengthy Tumblr post on Monday that the service plans to ban all adult content. There will be some exceptions, like for art with nudity, but for the most part, the days are numbered for existing Tumblr posts featuring nudity or other pornographic content. The policy comes two weeks after Tumblr was kicked off the Apple App Store because some child pornography reportedly slipped through its filters. It’s unclear if Tumblr didn’t respond to just these reports of child porn fast enough, or if this is a long-standing problem.

It’s certainly true that Tumblr, which now is owned by Verizon, needs to work vigilantly and hire people to make sure that its services aren’t used to abuse minors and traffic in child pornography. Pedophilic material is something that all live-to-post services need to seriously contend with and actively engage in rooting out, whether they are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter’s Periscope—where I found last year that apparent pedophiles were frequently preying on young users—or Tumblr. But the platform’s fix is the equivalent of hammering a nail with a skyscraper, only to have it slip through an open window. It’s an overreaching solution that won’t protect children who are victims of child pornography, seekers of which will all but certainly find another place to go.

What banning “adult content” will do, however, is eradicate one of the few mainstream, safe, and non-taboo places where people could participate in communities that openly congregate around sex and sexuality. Sex is great, and it’s no wonder that people like to consume sexual images—much of the internet is dedicated to this. Knowing that one could roll onto Tumblr, a very popular social media site, find a blog dedicated to whatever flavor of porn one likes, and look at images that turn one on, made the whole ordeal of seeking sexual imagery less daunting, demeaning, and dangerous.

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Anonymous: Shouldn’t Anal Only Lifestyle actually be fine? Since the new restrictions don’t apply to text.

It might be, and we’ll see what happens when the day comes, but I’m inclined to move everything off Tumblr and stop supporting the platform entirely at this point.

Tumblr has updated their terms of service and will be banning all adult blogs starting December 17. That means this blog and all associated blogs will be disabled and removed from public access soon.

https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248-Sensitive-content

Obviously, I’m quite disappointed by this and the resulting loss of over 6 years of work building and maintaining this blog and its community. I will try to set up a mirror of the Anal Only Lifestyle blog in the coming weeks, but I expect that the porn blogs may be gone for good just due to the costs of hosting large amounts of image/video content.

How Can I Stay Connected to the Anal Only Lifestyle Community?

Fortunately, we’re far more than just these blogs! This blog will remain in place at its current URL, but will be moving off Tumblr before the 17th. Our community is centralized at the Anal Only Lifestyle Forum and Discord server. Please join and bookmark these links in order to stay connected with this community and follow our next steps as we continue to build and grow the anal only community. In addition to discussion and realtime chat, the Discord server also has porn sharing sections.

You can also find us on Twitter and Reddit.

What Can I Do About My Own Blog?

Tumblr lets you back up and download your blog. Go to your Blog Settings page for the blog in question, scroll to the bottom, click the Export button at the bottom, and wait for an email that notifies you it’s ready to be downloaded. If it’s a big blog, it might be a very large file—this blog was 25 GB!

I just wanted to say hello. I’m glad I found this group and I look forward to a reading lots of advice and such.

Thank you for your message, and welcome! I hope you find it enlightening, and feel free to send other comments or ask questions.

Anonymous: It’s hard to find your blog anymore, what’s going on? I hope you aren’t going away!

Definitely never going away, this community will always exist in some form, and this blog will exist as long as it can.

Tumblr has made it harder for people to find adult-oriented content, blocked it from public search engines, and only allows logged-in members to view such blogs, but it’s still here if you get past all that. And until a better alternative to Tumblr exists that doesn’t censor sexual topics, this blog will remain here.

In the meantime, and if this blog ever does disappear, you can follow and join the rest of the anal only community.

• The Anal Only Lifestyle forum is the central hub of the community, with thousands of discussions and shared experiences, and links to the rest of the community.
• The Anal Only Lifestyle Discord server is the realtime chat equivalent of the forum and probably where the most activity happens within the AO community, so definitely join and check that out!

This blog and its greater community isn’t just a one-way street where I and other people post and share, we want to hear your experiences, comments, and questions too! Whatever it may be, feel free to ask a question and I’ll be happy to respond as soon as I’m able!

Anonymous: Didnt you used to post pics/gifs

You may be confusing this blog with its sister blog (NSFW), which does post porn. This blog has always been for discussion, advice and sharing.

Update December 2018: Tumblr has since banned adult content and that blog is no more. See our Anal Only Porn Blogs page for updated links for some such blogs that have moved to other platforms.

Anonymous: Hi, I was wondering if you had any recommendations for AO blogs that aren’t D/s oriented? While I totally respect everyone’s right to do whatever they want in their relationships as long as everyone’s consenting, all that stuff is a big turn off for me. Like what you said in a recent post, AO doesn’t HAVE to be about submission and women being called sluts and degraded, but I have such a hard time finding blogs that don’t include that aspect. Any recommendations?

I myself try to have a balanced mix of content, some of which is a bit more D/s oriented, and some not. Other blogs often do lean a bit more in that direction, partly just because while there’s absolutely no inherent need for the anal only lifestyle to be tied to dominance or submission, it does pair well and appeals to a lot of people who already have that interest.

It’s something that would be nice to see more of, blogs that are still strictly anal only but with captions focused on people who have gone anal only strictly out of preference and pleasure. I’d suggest starting one yourself if you can’t find more that already exist.

You can also check out our forum, which, like this blog is more oriented around real people following the lifestyle and their real experiences rather than fantasy.

Anonymous: Do you encourage pegging any of the sort

It’s not typically the focus of my blog, but everyone is welcome in the anal only lifestyle, and men can certainly enjoy receiving anal as well as women. If it’s something you enjoy, go for it!