TFW Your Boyfriend’s Tumblr Is Filled With Graphic Porn
Before we had social media, an outsider’s perception of your romantic relationship was a lot less invasive. Once you had decided to go public with your significant other, people could only make judgments of them based on their own personal interactions and their physical characteristics (and maybe whatever gossip followed them).
As a millennial growing up with access to the Internet for the main portion of my life, I’ve experienced the added pressure that social media brings to dating. Now when you date someone, you don’t just date their looks, reputation and IRL personality — you also date their social media presence. You date the awful tweets they write at 3 a.m, you date the DMs they slide into and you even date the Snapchats they choose to screenshot — all of which can give new and different impressions, and become a direct reflection of you and your relationship.
I didn’t realize how much this phenomenon would affect my romantic relationships until I encountered a troubling situation during my first longterm relationship. After my aforementioned boyfriend and I met for the first time, I remember us moving our flirting immediately to Facebook Chat (as anyone would do in 2012). In the middle of getting to know each other better — and me trying to sound really cool — we landed on the topic of Tumblr. He then sent me a link to his account, along with a warning that it was very NSFW. I found this to be a strange warning. I mean doesn’t everyone post semi-private information about themselves on this site? For me it wasn’t so much nude selfies, but about how my high school boyfriend was my one true love and that my life will never go on. Regardless of the warning, I didn’t hesitate to click the link.
I remember when I first clicked on the page. It had all the archetypical Tumblr posts like cool graffiti pieces, the cover of Brand New’s “The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me” (aka the Tri-State’s pop punk bible) and pictures of amazing houses that most people will never get to live in. I kept scrolling for these graphic images I was warned about. In my head, I imagined the typical softcore and artsy porn I usually (accidentally) see in my feed. You know, like the well-photographed nudes, or the unrealistic images of two beautiful models that you or I will probably never look like having sex.
When I did find finally it, I was kind of shocked. Despite the disclaimer, I don’t think I was quite ready for what I was going to see. There it was — a GIF of a girl, roughly having a man’s erection thrust into her throat. Now, I’m not going to sit here and act like I’ve never seen porn. In fact, as someone who learned almost everything about sexuality from the Internet, porn has been a constant mainstay in my life. However, this image came as a complete shock compared to the “naked girl in a nice filter” I expected to see. The blog almost made me second guess if I should continue with going on dates with him, but I decided that it was a superficial reason not to, and proceeded to do so for two years.
My embarrassment of my boyfriend’s sexual online presence began when I had to start explaining the Tumblr page to not just my friends, but both of our acquaintances. Eventually — as it often happens when you date someone — your friend groups begin to mix, and eventually that turns into mutual followers across all platforms. Although it was often tricky to find, eventually my friends would come across the page. It always prompted a discussion that started with, “So I was on your boyfriend’s Tumblr and there was a lot of porn on there.” I never really knew how to approach these comments. In a way, I firmly believe that I didn’t have a right to dictate what he posted on his own personal site. After all, the beauty of the Internet is the freedom and the opportunity to express and discuss topics that would otherwise be suppressed in our day-to-day lives.
On the other hand, I could never understand why he was posting the images. It gave people the opportunity to pass judgement on what our physical relationship was like intimately. I didn’t like the idea that people had access to those kind of details, or that the images might give the wrong impression of what was really happening in the bedroom. The content also sometimes made me compare our actual sexual experiences to it, and I often felt insecure that he wasn’t completely fulfilled IRL.
I’m not saying that people should not express their sexual identities on social media. I think online platforms can be a great place to quite literally let your freak flag fly. I think this kind of trend has also done amazing things, like giving a voice to people in fetish communities and allowing their sexuality to become less taboo. If you’re into hair pulling, choking and any other X-rated activities, you have the right to express that to the world. It’s the same exact right that I had to talk to God-knows-who about my high school boyfriend.
I want to stress that it’s not about censoring or controlling what your significant other posts, but making sure that their life aligns with yours. In my case, I have realized the Tumblr page, or what was posted on it, was not the issue — I was. I didn’t have the same interests or feel the same way about posting intimate detail to the Internet. I only felt ashamed because for me, it was not something I was personally comfortable with. However, there are lots of people out there who feel the exact opposite way.
I truly believe you can try to love someone for who they are away from their social media, but when the majority of our time is spent in front of a glowing screen, it’s important to find someone whose posts align with your values. It is important to find the one that will not only appreciate you for who you are, but also for the content you post.
