Tom of Finland’s illustrations have been influential to sado-masochism and fetish culture as well as inspiring many iconic gay artists, like Robert Mapplethorpe, Bob Mizer, George Quaintance, and Etienne. A dedicated publication also collates the comics of Kake, Tom’s favorite and reoccurring character.
#THREE GAY ANIME GUYS SERIES#
A series of TASCHEN books also focuses on different fantasy types that appear in Tom’s work the military man, sailors, cops and criminals, and blue collar, regular guys. TASCHEN’s XXL monograph The Art of Pleasure, chronicles Laaksonen’s homoerotica in all its explicit and suggestive playfulness. For many, Tom of Finland images were the first depictions of homosexual desire and sex they had ever seen.
![three gay anime guys three gay anime guys](https://animemotivation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/yaoi-anime-wallpaper.jpg)
Tom’s men were men, and there was only one thing on their minds. His images of butch and muscular men engaged in intimacy, often dressed in working class uniforms, subverted the stereotype of the effete and intellectual gay man.
![three gay anime guys three gay anime guys](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d4/a5/5d/d4a55dbd48e25519b727c50a1726daaf.jpg)
By the late 60s Tom’s dirty drawings became the standard for gay art and Tom’s Men a template for a new gay masculinity. After honing his artistic talents with study in Helsinki, he found commercial success in the Finnish advertising industry but secretly he continued creating his increasingly erotic drawings of hyper-masculine men.Īs a way to avoid homophobic censorship law, he submitted drawings to the American magazine Physique Pictorial and soon the Tom of Finland legend was born. Touko Laaksonen, the boy who would become Tom of Finland (1920-1991), began drawing cartoons of the rough and manly men of his native Finland at an early age. Nobody seems to be in trouble, in fact everyone appears to be enjoying themselves. Two male police officers, biceps bursting out of their uniforms, have pulled over a handsome young biker clad in a revealing leather outfit.