Tumblr.com is for porn. No, really, it is. You can post writing there, and insular teens and college students seem to be very fond of this, but that's certainly not what the folks I know go to this site to see. Tumblr is the internet's greatest resource for free porn, whether videos or still pics. Stills were thought to be a dead medium for internet porn, but
Tumblr has effectively resurrected them, due mostly to the fact that they're free.
One of the greatest draws of Tumblr is that it's the multimedia equivalent of Twitter. You can post or repost, and many people do both for links, images, video, audio, and written copy.
Herein lies a revelation about queer culture: while some Tumblrs only post porn, others are effortlessly pioneering a bold, honest form of blogging by creating a free-association mix of compelling visual art, charming nostalgia, favorite music, self-portraits, and hardcore porn. These blogs are impressive collections of whatever-we-were-enjoying-at-the-moment. It's the delightful, hope-restoring opposite of YouTube comments.
I'm not sure if straight Tumblrs are doing this. Porn, whether straight or queer, is almost always created by cisgender men, and most straight dudes do not seem remotely interested in having the latest Pitbull music video on the same page as vagina pics, quasi-ironic vintage porn, sports clips, and their favorite architecture.
Queers, however, are curating Tumblr blogs that are transcendental. We're fucking with genre (French for "gender"), blending and exploding categories, which is what we've always done best. Aside from a cultural fixation on Tilda Swinton and Paris Is Burning, James Bidgood and Pierre et Gilles photos appear alongside the latest Beyoncé or Matmos single, beside images of exquisite teapots, following angry radical queer politics, next to runway photography, then a picture of some dude blowing someone—all uploaded or reblogged in the same hour. Just as the reposting trend is greatly influenced by Twitter, etc., the eclectic mix of damn-near-anything has the feel of iTunes on shuffle. Technology is undoubtedly shaping our behavior patterns and thought processes.
Here are some of my favorite queer Tumblrs, from the most hardcore to the merely playful:
Now blogging more regularly at Sissydude.com, John Webster is a talented artist and queer Tumblr icon, arguably the reigning queen of these bloggers. The photos of his house are stunning (it's a museum of kitsch). His site is the best example of what classic gay men think about: sex, photography, interior decorating, penises, crossdressing, facial hair, vintage pop, jockstraps, little knickknacks, guns, semen, and dead actresses. It's a damn fantasia.
This one makes me wish I were a lesbian. This site is both tastefully elegant and utterly subversive, and most of the pornography is vintage. Run by several bloggers, there's cheesecake, beefcake, bondage, peek-a-boo nudity, and more. Though primarily lesbian, Queering includes men and trans people of all natures. It's pure queer nostalgia and curiously heartwarming in its presentation of same-sex couples from many eras (another big meme for queer Tumblrs).
Androphilia has settled way down lately in the focus on the male body. Fine art and politics prevail, with international articles and other prose pieces. Though homoerotic, there's been little recent nudity. Androphilia is still totally worthwhile—a recent post listed resources for queer Muslims, something few people spend much time caring about.
Well of course I want to listen to En Vogue while I watch porn. This guy limits his Tumblr strictly to pop music and porn. For a quick get-off, it's perfect. You can even listen to gospel as you clean up, which is both wonderfully campy and irreverent as shit.
This one defies description, as the best queer things usually do. It's definitely bear-sex oriented, but it's also oddly mystical. It's a sci-fi/fantasy gender-blending sex overdose, as though William S. Burroughs gave a shit about the internet long enough to blog.
Craig blogs from New Zealand and succeeds where many gay bitches fail miserably: He's actually funny. His one-liners usually hit me exactly where I need it. Example: "I wish the royal family would do something about Harry's rosacea." Very little sex here, actually, and it's only there to be criticized, but go ahead: Feed your shade tooth. 
Evan J. Peterson is the author of Skin Job (Minor Arcana Press, 2012) and The Midnight Channel (Babel/Salvage Press, 2013) as well as the editor of Gay City Volume 5: Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam (Minor Arcana Press, 2013). His journalism and criticism can be found in the Rumpus, Seattle Gay News, the Southeast Review, and Nailed.
