While many of these artists were getting their beginnings in the 1980s, the rise of queer art and identity made way for a massive appreciation of queer aesthetics in then-contemporary culture.)ĭespite its faults and failures for standing the test of time, however, Tom of Finland remains a staple of queer history and an even bigger monument to gay erotic art. It’s not hard to pick up a title featuring Alex Ross, Greg Land, Frank Quitely, or Dale Eaglesham and see that to many, the “focus on physique” was the major draw for readers banking on the masculinity of their heroes. This trend, while not inherently sexual in its nature, is one that can also be seen in comics of the 1990s, where many creators found the new norm in deeply-muscled male characters with chiseled jaws and rounded bums.
Tom of Finland was nothing if not noted for portraying square-jawed, smiling, dominating men whose physique - massive penis aside - was easily highlighted through nearly-painted-on leather, boots, and generally a massive spotlight on uniforms. It’s not difficult to draw a through-line from Tom’s art, regardless of how silly it may seem to some, through to the design and aesthetics of the modern day superhero. While many publications made being a gay man a sin, or something to exist only in the shadows or under the counter of a magazine store, Tom and his characters were willing to be out, horny, and happy enough for everybody. Instead of the usual narrative found in many gay comics or pulp novels at the time in which gay men felt shame and enjoyed their pleasure as a secret taboo, Tom’s characters clearly, visibly relished in it - the hunger for pleasure, stripped inhibition, and being seen at their most sexual machismo. In fact, it’s often noted that while consent (or, probably more accurately, consensual non-consent) is a tricky subject among some of Tom’s works, each character is one that looks happy, bright, and like he’s enjoying himself.
While his porn and pictures were often fun ways to get a glimpse of cock in your spare time, the pictures are not without their sensuality.
Perhaps one of the most notable parts of Tom's artwork that differentiate him from what we’re used to, however, is the lusciousness and softness afforded to such strong men.
By the 1960s, as American pornography laws became more lax, Tom’s art became increasingly explicit, full of even wilder fantasy, and more than a little exaggerated in the ways of proportioning. Even sold as “physique magazines” under the counter and on the down-low, the aesthetics of Laaksonen - now having officially adopted “Tom”, as a pen name as well as a moniker among friends - matched perfectly with the desires of gay men around the world. Soon enough, however, Laaksonen began to submit his art to beefcake magazines - ashcan-style magazines packed with images of American bodybuilders, muscled hunks in thongs, and an “appreciation” for everything…er… hardened about the male form. With Finland having taken the side of Nazi Germany during the Second World War (despite never officially becoming an axis power), the exposure to uniformed figures of power and hyper-sexuality proved to be a simply erotic environment to which a young Laaksonen was exposed.īy his 30s, Laaksonen had been working as a graphic artist in advertising, using his spare time to draw his own sexual desires just for fun, relying on imagery of authority figures, rural farmhands and lumberjacks from his childhood, and his own former military experience to fuel his pen.
In a way, for all of its faults concerning the legality of homosexuality back in the day, Finland inspired some of the gayest art the world had ever seen, including Laaksonen - who had served as a second lieutenant and anti-aircraft officer - fetishizing Nazi uniforms, a symbol of absolute hate whose philosophy and racism he deplored, found the design sexy and authoritative. With tensions growing to new heights, the militarization of Finland was something of an inevitability, and every able-bodied young man was required by law to join and serve. Known most famously as Tom of Finland, Touko Laaksonen was born in Finland in the 1920s - a period where the country was not only going through its own growing pains, but also learning to cope with Soviet Russia as its rather touchy new neighbors.