Erotic artist Jas Purrlock has used Tumblr to share her sexy artwork for five years. But though the social platform allows erotic art and nude adult content, Tumblr recently deleted her account for “inappropriate content involving or depicting minors.”
She and many other Tumblr artists have found their accounts deleted as the site cracks down on sexual content involving children.
The only problem: Purrlock’s artwork doesn’t depict kids.
Sometimes her creations involve underage characters from Voltron: Legendary Defender and other popular series, but Purrlock “ages up” these characters so they look like adults, different from in their shows.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Purrlock recently told The Daily Dot, “[Tumblr] never made a warning for content such as mine, never said anything was wrong with posting it.”
Tumblr deleted Purrlock’s accounts which had a combined 74,000 followers. As a result, Purrlock lost hundreds of drawings as well as the ability to connect with and solicit commissions from an audience she spent half a decade cultivating.
Tumblr told her if she tried to open another account, it would also be deleted.
An untold number of other erotic queer artists have been affected by similar recent deletions, according to The Daily Dot. And the reason might have to do with kiddie smut.
Related: PHOTOS: Illustrating Tumblr Users And Celebrating The Male Form
Earlier this month, Apple removed Tumblr from its online app store over reports of “child sexual abuse material.”
In a public statement, Tumblr wrote, “Every image uploaded to Tumblr is scanned against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are detected never reach the platform. A routine audit discovered content on our platform that had not yet been included in the industry database. We immediately removed this content.”
While Tumblr reassured users that it’s “continuously assessing further steps we can take to improve” the situation, adding, “there is no higher priority for our team,” their attempt to remove all sexual content involving minors has inadvertently included some queer artists who don’t make anything of the sort.
HereIAm
All inappropriate materials, gay or straight, that depict perverse, dehumanizing, and disgusting sexual fantasies should be deleted or purged. Look at that drawing where a grown man appears to be bullying a teenager. It doesn’t matter if it is just a dark fantasy or not. It’s hazardous material and should be illegal.
Chrisk
Ok back under your bridge Jerry falwell wanne be.
PinkoOfTheGange
I honestly hope this is just an internet character.
HereIAm
I am not going anywhere else, ChrisK.
Brian
I sure hope you’re some Macedonian getting paid to troll. Otherwise, maybe you should seek help.
TheBigOne
Let’s start with the bible then as it is one of the most violent books ever written.
Nosso Crankee
Oh, you’re going SOMEWHERE, Sweetie: straight to Hell in a handbasket, where all the shrill, mewling histrionics end up…Kisses!
Minyassa
Heavy brow, long nose, strong jaw…that dude looks like a teenager in your mind only. That’s two grown-ass men, and the little hearts drawn around both word balloons suggests flirting, not bullying. Sheesh, no wonder people are deleting innocent artwork if people are going to be seeing things that aren’t even there in anything.
Brian
It has to be an internet character. Nobody who is that offended by gay culture and sexuality would spend as much time reading Queerty as HereIAm does. And no self respecting gay man would say the prudish, 80 year old church lady things that he does. I just wish he were a bit more amusing with the trolling. Let Betty Bowers be your spirit animal dude.
Curtispsf
@ Brian. Finally. Betty Bowers is getting the attention (s)he so richly so deserves. Yours in Christ, dude.
/|\
Kenyontoo
The most worrisome thing about all this is that you see a grown man bullying a teenager in that drawing.
Catholicslutbox
Next headline: Tumblr bans 90% of Japanese IPs.
jsmu
@HereIAm Yo, RUSSKYTROLL TURDWAD. You are most certainly going somewhere, like off this goddamned site. Reported.
jsmu
BITCH, PUHLEAAAAAZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
scoffingskeptic
And let me guess, you think you’re the one to decide what is and isn’t appropriate for the hundreds of millions of people who live in this country?
Just move to China bro, you’ll love it.
NCSilverBear
While I do NOT see what you see — “. . . bullying a teenager” — I do agree that any so-called “art” that depicts underaged kids in a sexual or perverse situation, including naked pictures of kids, should be deleted. I have no room in my life for anything that even gets close to crossing that line. I realize not everyone in the world holds my attitude, but, I don’t socialize or cater to anyone who has that lifestyle. I think that if this artist was exhibiting art that went down this path, that yes, she should have been banned.
jaack
Verizon has pulled another boner(can I say that word?). Tumblr has already, without notice, canceled many author accounts and destroyed authors materials, long before any announcement of content censorship. The Dec 17 deadline is notifying you to leave Tumblr in the dustbin of censorship. I half expected a “fatwa” on uncensored content. Tumblr claims it will use an alleged “Industry standard database” to sanitize images, illustrations and other material deemed unholy. I have huge doubts about this “Industry standard database” existence! Explicitly forbidden is the depiction of female nipples in any form except words, but the male nipple is perfectly acceptable, again gender inequality by corporate censors. People with clothes on covering the navel and below deemed are UNACCEPTABLE. All Tumblr text will be the next censors’ targets. This leads me to sever all ties with Tumblr and its parent organizations. What will remain of these sites will be close to advertising only images websites. Craigslist has felt the sting of member losses and advert. revenue. Tumblr will suffer the same fate of lost users and revenue. These corporations buying out popular websites has reduced content down to grammar school level where Cookie Monster & the human body are demonized. Everything you see from now on will be redacted! This rant is not mean-spirited but tries to point out the heavy-handedness of corporate censors trying to please all their shareholders and will the web a sanitized wasteland. I head to my TOR browser and VPN and go dark web from now on. Tumblr don’t bite the hand that feeds you. My pink money is going elsewhere.
bonbon
Well maybe they should stop “aging up” underage characters. The gay really shouldn’t be in the title because it doesn’t seem like that’s the reason it’s being removed.
mike_TNYC
The thing that amazes me is not that Tumbler deleted something, even for a foolish reason, since the images apparently do not depict minors. It’s that an artist would spend 5 years posting THE ONLY COPIES of her artwork on a social media site and collecting followers. She’s either an idiot or a Millennial who thinks the Internet has always been there and always will be.
Anyone who has documents, or email addresses of followers, that they want to keep secure should have them on their own hard drive, with a backup to another drive or a DVD in case the hard drive gets hacked. The world isn’t a fair place, people, and media sites are run for the benefit of their owners, not for your benefit.
Robothedestroyer
I wondered the same thing about the way she was achieving her artwork.
ElPillo
Agreed. Really stupid thing.
djmcgamester
I’m sure we all know that iPhone removed the Tumblr app from the app store because they found kiddie porn. That means Tumblr is going to be extra vigilant right now, erring on the side of caution. They’d rather delete something questionable than allow depictions of child porn. It’s understandable, even if frustrating.
@HereIAm: Is that a man bullying a boy? The one on bottom is younger, for sure, but based on the artwork they look to be about the same height. Nothing in the speech bubbles says it’s bullying. We’d definitely need more context to come to that conclusion one way or the other.
@TheBigOne: The Bible isn’t just one of the most violent works but also condones slavery, genocide, filicide (killing ones own child), God making bets with Satan (or the depiction as seen then, which was not the super powerful entity he later became), and incest via getting Daddy drunk and raping him. But, hey, porn is bad because Reasons.
Robothedestroyer
I had no idea they found kiddie porn on tumblah. Now that reaction from them toward the lady’s art makes a tiny bit more sense.
scoffingskeptic
Who cares if the picture depicts bullying or not? The artist can draw whatever she wants; HereIAm doesn’t get to censor something just because he disapproves of it.
Steven
What an odd policy coming from an app I regularly go to for gay porn content.
ElPillo
There is all the porn you want. Thinking about it, I don’t see hitting, whipping, and other “rape” scenes.
Brian
They aren’t selecting gay content for removal. This headline is misleading.
Get your news elsewhere.
nickbaerhollywood
They deleted Google Play Books with Male or Female nudity in 2013.
They sold a lot of mine, NickBaerGallery.com, then one day, they deleted up a storm o gay, str8 and otherwise photo eBooks across the board! Photo books, illustrations, and more. They also trashed a couple of my Tumblrs, but they left others alone! No rhyme or reason.
They made some kind of deal with a cons family group. But, you can still get the nude photo eBooks from many other places.
Nicolobo
I’ve had a few times when I was uncomfortable with the apparent age of guys in photos or videos. I get the need to be cautious. There’s also a need to be reasonable and not go overboard in the other direction. Welcome to human nature. They’ve gone too far.
jsmu
@Nicolobo Nice attempt at bothsidesism BULLSHIT. EPIC FAIL!
Bob
Sounds like Instagram is worshiping the almighty dollar. After things get back to notmal with Apple, things might go back to normal.
jsmu
Reactionary sex-hating CORPOFASCISM, 2.0
Evji108
Tumbler is just deleting tons of gay porn, in general – it doesn’t have to have underage content. No rhyme or reason. I Kid you not.
hansniemeijer
Censorship is very dangerous. Nazi-Germany, Turkey, China, The White House, Putin……….. The list might be longer.
Brian
This isn’t censorship, and Tumblr isn’t an arm of the government.
sydboy007
Once you support censorship and hate speech it’s only a matter of time before those you handed that power to will use it against you.
Brian
This has nothing to do with hate speech or discrimination of any kind.
A crap post on a blog shouldn’t rile you up this much. Get educated.
nickedbeater
Boys are hot and they know it.
misterjack
I hope Tumblr leaves the muscle leather bears and otters alone.
jsmu
@Brian You moron. Of course it has to do with censorship. Tumblr is ALSO deleting all sorts of other gay-related porn and postings; I personally know four blog owners who had their blogs yanked so far. The ‘terms of service’ are so goddamned vague that Tumblr , which is where it is today BECAUSE OF PORN, can now start on the purge it’s wanted to do for years to ‘sanitize’ its lousy self. You really are too stupid to be allowed to post in public!