Dirty Pictures, Or the Enduring Allure of the Leather Clad Superman Kake: Tom of Finland’s Art (NSFW)

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Academic Book, anal penetration, Art, Art Commentary, biography, Book Review, Dirty Pictures, Dirty Pictures: Tom of Finland Masculinity and Homosexuality, Gay, Gay Men, Gay Porn, Gay Sex, Kake, leather, Male Body, Martin P. Levine, masculinity, Masculinity Studies, Micha Ramakers, Penis, Pornography, Queer, Robust, Robust totally TOTALLY means gay, Sexual Exploration, Sexual Fantasy, sexual idealism, Sexual identity, Sexual Rhetoric, Sexuality, Tom of Finland, Tom of Finland Foundation, Working Class Men, Writing

There’s something about marines.  I really can’t explain it. It’s like how there’s something about men wearing denim.  Or men wearing leather.  Or men wearing lipstick.  Or men wearing cowboy hats.  Or men wearing police uniforms.  Or men wearing work boots.  Or men with long hair.  Or men with tattoos.  Or men shopping for vegetables.  Or men handling wood at hardware stores.  Or men…actually, you know there’s just something about men period.  Maybe that’s what lead me to Tom of Finland in the first place.

Justifying book purchases is getting more and more difficult, and my regular reader probably knows this already if they’ve ever read my homage to Christopher Hitchens.  The space, or, really lack of it, is the primary concern, however there’s also now the issue of mortality.  As I am just a few months away from turning thirty, and becoming yet another in a long line of cliched individuals who realize that they’re youth is quickly becoming a thing of the past, my concern now with purchasing more books is the worry that I won’t actually have time to read them all.  This creates a compulsion towards priority.  DO I really want to read that Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Andrew Jackson when I can’t fucking stand Andrew Jackson, and do I really need to sit down and read Finnegan’s Wake when I realize now that I will never read Ulysses ever again?  There are some positives here, as I have realized more and more that there are books and topics that I legitimately want to read about.  Whether it’s books about Ancient Greece, the Ottoman Empire, anything having to do with Queer identity, and the entire collected works of Vladimir Nabokov these are books that I will read and will make an effort to read. 

And so as I reevaluate my priorities I can honestly write that I felt neither fear nor guilt in purchasing a $50 book about the work of Tom of Finland titled Dirty Pictures: Tom of Finland, Masculinity, and Homosexuality. 

I only feel guilty that, after the book arrived in the mail, I hopped into a couple volumes of the manga One Punch Man before actually reading it, but in my defense One Punch Man is freaking hysterical and I apologize for nothing.

I’ve written before about what Tom of Finland’s work has meant to me, as well as to the homosexual community.  It’s not just that the man was able to help establish an unashamed model of gay porn for queer men to use and gravitate towards, it’s the fact that this pornography and art was able to validate the viewers with men who were attractive and quite visibly happy to be gay.  No matter what Tom’s men were doing (sucking, fucking, sexually harassing postal workers) they always managed to find something to enjoy about being sexual with one another, or, to put it another way, they were having fun being gay. 

This happiness helped establish Tom, real name Touko Valio Laaksonen, as one of the most important gay pornographers and artists, but this happiness, coupled with the fact that the men he drew were typically butch and traditionally masculine, did more for the queer male community who often had been regulated to the “fairy” and “queen” identity.  Tom created a new model of masculinity for queer men, one they were happy to embrace.

Ramakers notes this as he observes the emergence of an unapologetic gay culture:

In the seventies, gay subcultural reality in the United States began to bear an even closer resemblance to Tom of Finland’s images of gay sexuality.  According to sociologist Martin Levine, in that decade there was a noticeable growth in anonymous erotic activity.  Gay meeting places were decorated with Western, leather, or high tech styles and sported “masculine” names such as The Eagle, Badlands, Ambush, Anvil and so on.  In many bars, sparsely lit or darkened rooms were designated for cruising and tricking (spontaneous sex).  Crusing and tricking became the sexual norm.  Sexual techniques were rough and phallocentric and consisted mainly of “deep-throating” (blow job with the entire penis thrust down the throat), hard fucking (jamming entire penis into anus while spanking hard), and heavy tit work (robust sucking, pinching, or biting of nipples).  (106-7).

Before I address this quote I really need to observe that the adjective “robust” always sounds gay to me.  I don’t know what it is.  Just saying the word “robust” it sounds like something a fairy (such as yours truly) would say while describing the repairman who showed up to fix his plumping.  And then maybe, while he was working and trying to keep his long hair out of his face, his shirt would get wet and he’d have to take it off revealing a mess of thick black chest hair that would curl while light would reflect in the small beads of water clinging to…

Oh, I’m sorry, I got distracted.  Anyway, “robust” always just sounds super-gay to me for personal reasons.

Ramakers quote is important though because it reveals where queer men of the seventies were at sexually as well as personally.  It’s easy to forget in an age of Grindr and Scruff and Tindr, but free and casual sex between men was actually quite would have to use codes to find one another, and even then men could find themselves accidentally exposing themselves to straight men who might not always be so happy to discover another man’s hand on their leg.  Compounding this is the fact that, before the seventies, and even some-time after that, being open about one’s queerness could wind one up in a mental institution where there are all manner of nightmare stories.

The ability to suck and fuck, and be sucked and fucked, without fear of social reprisal was not only liberating it was revolutionary.  And in this new erotic atmosphere men began to look for a new character to embody.

Ramakers points his reader to Martin P. Levine, who’s work I’ve reviewed in the past, but then tries to show that the push towards a more traditionally “masculine” culture was an effort by queer men to become something new.  Rather than continue to the idea of the “invert,” or the feminine “fairy,” guys wanted to act and behave more like straight men, only with a lot more sex.  And in this new desire for a masculine ideal, Tom’s work was a great boon.  If the reader has never seen any of Tom’s work the first thing they will observe is, obviously, that it’s pretty gay.  But after this observation what becomes obvious is the fact that his men incredibly masculine.  Ramakers notes this earlier in his book when he observes:

Tom’s men are paper constructions of the ideal body, less a reflection of a particular reality than a representation of a social ideal or mental vision.  Tom’s male bodies are reminiscent enough of reality to be credible, but just far enough beyond that reality to form a nigh unattainable ideal. (72).

Now Ramakers observes that body-building culture impacted this but then later on he observes how Tom accounted for this:

In the later years of his career, Tom attempted to retain idealization, by exaggerating his men’s muscles even further […].  Because of this tendency, however, Tom’s man increasingly became a caricature: “when people criticized him for that, he would tell them, ‘I’m not trying for realism.  I want to express our fantasies.’” (73).

Tom’s work was never, and has never truly been about capturing some kind of realism.  While erotic art and pornography as an institution can at times create and capture the beauty of real and accurate sex, the fundamental purpose of the medium has always been to celebrate and enjoy sexuality, and in this action there is often a great desire for hyperbole.  Looking through some of the many drawings Tom did over the course of his life (the man was amazingly prolific given the fact he began this art at a time where it could have cost him dearly) there is often a great amount of play in his drawings. 

Breasts and shoulders tend to be well defined while hips and legs tend to be slimmer, although the buttocks can often be large and round.  The men, regardless of race or nationality, tend to have similar bone structure in the face, becoming more or less the same copy over and over again.  And, of course, the penises range from simply large to ridiculously gargantuan.

Not that I’m complaining but at some point one has to wonder how these men don’t throw out their back.

At this point the reader may question the immediate relevance of Ramaker’s book.  So what?  Why should I care about the analysis of pornography?  There isn’t any redeeming value in smut, it’s just dudes banging each other so other dudes can jerk off.  How could any of this be considered art?

As always my contester has some excellent points.  It is important to recognize that Tom of Finland’s work was and still is considered pornography by a significant portion of the population, and because the work is homoerotic in nature his appeal is going to be largely limited to a number of queer men, some women, and then a few art critics bold enough to make a serious assessment of the man and his work.  And, to be fair, the typical aesthetic goal of any erotic material is to inspire sexual arousal in the viewer, a sensation which is largely considered base and temporary in most people’s minds.  Looking at this then, Tom’s drawings does not seem to have a great amount of relevance to many people.

But if I can make a solid enough case, this criticism reveals a larger truth about the perception of sexuality in our culture.  Sex is often, at least as far as the United States is concerned, portrayed in the media in a dichotomy.  While there is near constant reference to human sexuality, the lingering Puritanic trend in most Americans ensures that this sexuality is portrayed as obscene, disgusting, or even grotesque thus leading to “abstinence only” environments which have been demonstrated time and time again not to actually work.  The conversation about sexuality is almost non-existent at the same time it is ever-present.

Tom of Finland entered my life entirely by accident, and since he did I’ve been able to explore a facet of my sexuality that feels not only true but liberating.  In Tom’s leather-clad supermen I found my sexuality and discovered that while at time it could be a serious, all-consuming drive, it could also be something funny and enjoyable.  Rather than feeling my desires as something grotesque or morally wrong, my sexuality, my attraction to women and men, was a chance to play and appreciate an idealized world where men could have sex freely without fear.  And while there are probably few straight men that would gravitate to the man’s artwork, the spirit of the work is something that is, at least in my estimation, universal. 

Sex is supposed to be fun, and Tom’s men are often smeared with the word pornography, they seem to find even in this distinction something to revel in.

And on the note of fear, Ramakers observes something incredibly powerful in Tom’s work:

Tom’s work is dedicated to the glorification of the male body, in all its vulnerability: his bodies are constantly being penetrated in every possible way and through every orifice.  (165).

Soon or later every essay about gay sex leads to the anus, and those people who enjoy having their’s penetrated or stimulated.  For the record I tried getting the previous sentence put on a t-shirt but the printers told me that they could move the shirts but there wouldn’t be enough room for the little cartoon anus I illustrated so I decided to scrap it.  If I’m going to make t-shirts about anal penetration you can bet there’s going to be a cute cartoon anus on them.  Integrity matters damn it.

I’ve written before about how the “problem” of penetration in gay sexuality has been discussed by writers and theorists and so I won’t bother my reader with long academic quotes that totally kill the vibe.  The simple matter is often the practice of anal sex between men, and the frequent use of the “top/bottom” dynamic within the community, has lead to this perception that gay sex is simply about which partner acts “like the girl” during sex.  What’s important about Tom’s work is that this dynamic is not only not apparent, it simply doesn’t exist.

Whether it’s construction workers, cops, sailors, soldiers, business men, or the leather-clad Kake himself, Tom’s men love to suck and fuck, and be sucked and fucked.  And so while some readers used to the concept of a pure top/bottom dynamic may at first be bothered by Tom’s presentations, there is actually a real and powerful disruption in the man’s work.  Tom’s men simply enjoy sex, and so rather than constructing identities where sexuality is limited to one action or one sexual organ, his men simply embrace the concept that they are sexual objects and beings and so they are willing to simply play with their sexuality.

Ramakers observes the power of this presentation:

Straight porn is for the most part based on the possession of the penis, which is used as a weapon against those who no not possess I.  In Tom of Finland’s work it is precisely the penis that is possessed by both—or all—parties, thus unhinging that basic tenet  from its supposed immutable position.  This allows the power to fluctuate between partners, none of whom can lay claim to “natural” prerogatives on the basis of possession of the penis. (219).

Or to put it another way, nobody is the “girl” in Tom’s work because there aren’t any girls period.  The matter of women being the weaker creature in pornography is well documented and in fact is its own essay.  For now I simply wanted to focus on Tom’s work because, as I’ve written before in another essay about Tom’s work, the mode of sexuality presented is something I appreciate and respect.

Whether we like it or not, pornography is a staple of the culture, and more and more children will experience pornography as they develop into adults.  In such an environment the importance of sexual education is important, but so is sexual representation.  Whether it be gay or not, Tom of Finland’s work is an incredible presentation of sexual activity because it does not attempt to present sex as a power-play.  Even at it’s most shocking and potentially violent, Tom’s men are not participating in a corrupt or revolting sexual display, they are simply trying to enjoy sex, thus crafting an image of masculinity and humanity that is liberating rather than constricting.

As a queer man, I don’t apologize for enjoying and consuming pornography because it’s an art which has allowed my exploration of self to take place.  And I consider it a point of pride that I blame of Tom of Finland for most of my gay sexual development.  In the pages of his work I found and fell in love with men who were strong (and “robust”) in a physical as well as personal way.  And that in turn was a source of inspiration.  My sexuality is something to celebrate rather than fear.

Dirty Pictures is a serious look at a genre of art that is often denied to the possibility for serious reflection and analysis, and as Tom of Finland’s work and life is recognized more and more by the culture such a book is a vital resource.  Ramaker’s book is an inspiration for those of us who found solace in Tom’s work, and an inspiration to continue the legacy of the man long after he has died.  In this way this review wasn’t just a chance to talk about gay sexuality, it was a chance to thank Ramakers for his book, as well as to thank Tom for his art.

Somewhere on the road there’s a leather-clad superman wearing a winged cock on his hat, and a smile on his face.  And it’s because of Tom’s work that a generation of men made it possible for at least the latter to be not so shocking to us.  Though as I write this I realize it might also just be because Terry Spots is doing another photo shoot in which case I’ll probably have to stop writing so I can disappear into Instagram for a few wonderful hours.

 

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

All quotes cited from Dirty Pictures: Tom of fInland, Masculinity, and Homosexuality were quoted from the first edition hardback St. Martin’s Press edition.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/tom-of-finland-who-is-the-gay-icon-a7319911.html

**Writer’s Note**

I included this in a previous essay about Tom of Finland, but I’ll put it here again.  This website totally and completely supports the work of tOm of Finland and those who try to maintain the legacy of the man’s art.  In fact, one such organization is the Tom of Finland Foundation, a sort of museum, archives, community center which maintains the legacy of Tom of Finland, houses most of his work, and actually supports the work of other erotic artists working today.  I mention this organization not just because I love Tom of FInland, but also because I’m a member of the Foundation and considered it one of the proudest moments of my life when I received my membership card in the mail.

If you love Tom of FInland, or at least would be more interested in learning more about the man’s work, I’ve included a link below to the FOundation’s website where you can contact them directly as well as see some of the various artists who have contributed to their organization.

https://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org/foundation/N_Home.html

I would also recomend, if you get the chance, visiting the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.  While their work is not dedicated solely to Tom of Finland, it was partly because of his art that the leather-scene took off in the United States and became not just an aesthetic but an entire lifestyle.  Their museum and website is dedicated to collecting and preserving leather-culture and the various arts and artists and peoples who have helped establish the community.  you can see their site by following the link below:

https://leatherarchives.org

***Writer’s Note***

If the reader is at all interested I found a few articles and pages about the lasting significance of Tom of Finland and have included them below.  Some of them have to deal with the new biopic film about Tom of Finland himself (which I do intend to watch and review at some point)  Enjoy:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/tom-of-finland-who-is-the-gay-icon-a7319911.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_of_Finland

http://www.worldoftomoffinland.com/xToF_home.php

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/12/555652264/the-man-behind-all-those-behinds-tom-of-finland

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/10/tom-of-finland-review-biopic-gay-artist

And finally, if you would be interested in reading (really seeing and owning) Tom’s work for yourself, I’ve provided a link to TAschen’s website where you can purchase some of the beautiful collections of Tom’s work.  I would ABSOLUTELY recommend it:

https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/search/tom-of-finland

 

****Writer’s NOTE****

Okay, seriously this time. THIS is the last thing I’ll say.  Tom’s work was largely responsible for creating a “working-class” model of homosexuality thus shattering the illusion that queer men could only be upper-class-fairy-limp-wriested-fops.  Not that there was anything wrong with being an effeminate queen (lord knows I am), but Tom essentialy gave queer men more room to find themselves, and this perception that anybody could be gay has allowed for some beautiful moments in art.

Case and point my all time favorite scene from The Simpsons.  Homer thinks Bart is gay and so he takes him around to see several examples of burly-straight-men all of which turn out to be gay until it culminates in this moment of pure comedic genius.

Happy Homosexuals? What Blasphemy is This?: Tom of Finland’s Lasting Cultural Impact

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anal penetration, Art, artist, big dicks, Bisexuality, blowjob, Comics, F. Valentine Hooven III, Female Masculinity, Gay, Gay Comics, Gay Leather Fetish, Gay Porn, Gay Sex, giant cocks, Homosexuality, Homosexuality as mental illness, Humor, Jack Halberstam, Kake, leather, masculinity, Masculinity Studies, Penis, Pornography, Queer, Queer Pornography, Queer Theory, sexual Education, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual identity, Sexuality, soldiers, Sucking Cock is a Great Way to Spend a Friday Night, The Advocate, The Complete Kake Comics, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Well of Loneliness, Tom of Finland, Tom of Finland: His Life and Times, Touko Laaksonen, uniforms, Working Class Men

A man goes into a bathroom to take a piss.  Another man walks up, whips it out, and starts to pee.  The men look at each other’s cocks, smile, and start to fool around.  In the middle of their fun another man walks in and joins in, the next man who walks in is a sailor, this is followed by a young student, then a black man in a suit, and finally a biker dressed in rough denim and a sleeveless leather vest.  The story ends with all the men fucking butt to butt to butt to butt to butt, and my reader gets it from there.  Despite the graphic intensity of this image what is absolutely important about this story, which is told as a series of pictures, is that all the men who are having sex in this bathroom are smiling.

That may not seem terribly important, but for the time this story was drawn out it was not only controversial, it was unprecedented.

I don’t apologize for admitting that I’m a consumer of pornography.  And to be perfectly honest, there isn’t anyone living in this contemporary period who should.  Pornography has transcended its previous space in society which, until recently, was at the bottom of your dad’s sock drawer or filing cabinets.  The days when little boys (and some girls, let’s be fair here) would steal their father’s Playboys and tremble as they turned pages discovering the awesome power of airbrushing has passed, and now generations of little boys (and girls, again, let’s be fair) now have an unlimited supply of images and videos of naked people fucking.  Now there’s plenty of discourse about whether this new openness and ease of access to pornography is negatively affecting the population, but that’s for another essay.

I am a consumer of pornography, and while at times this is a fact that can be embarrassing there is one crucial fact that needs to be observed: I watch and consume gay porn because I’m queer and I want to remain faithful to my wife.

It’s taken quite a while to develop the kind of confidence to admit this, both out loud and to millions of anonymous strangers on the internet, but it’s a fact nonetheless.  Since I came out I’ve begun to read more and more about bisexual identity, homosexual identity, and more specifically about sexual intimacy between men.  My growing Queer library is almost completely dominated by men (phrasing) and one book in this ever-rising mountain of same-sex intimacy has become not only one of my favorite books, but also the most important: The Complete Kake Comics.

Kake, pronounced Kah-ke or cake, dealer’s choice, is the creation of a man by the name of Touko Laaksonen and has become since his early appearance in the 1950s and 60s, and icon of gay and bisexual male culture.  With his leather jacket, slim moustache, and black leather cap Kake established a visual ideal from which gay men the world over identified and mimicked in their dress and overall behavior.  If the reader has never observed or read any of the Kake comics I’ve provided some images within the body of this essay, some of which are obviously hyperbolic and purely pornographic.  I
discovered Kake, and his creator Tom of Finland, completely by accident.  I wish there was a dignified way of explaining this serendipity other than “I googled hot guys and look what came out” but, yeah, again, dignity, that’s a thing I don’t possess.

In my defense, however, after discovering the snippets of online content of Tom’s work I managed to track down a complete book on Amazon which I purchased and read.  Studying the drawings was entertaining, not just for the obvious perverted reason, but because Tom of Finland manages to illustrate beautiful scenes of men fucking in a wide variety of contexts and locations and each page is beautiful for the perspective and attention to detail.  Reading the book I enjoyed seeing these handsome men having fun and enjoying themselves and fucking with abandon because, unlike most of the pornography in the contemporary market, these men looked like they were actually having fun while they fucked.  The sex wasn’t about berating your partner, calling him a bitch or a fag, and then relishing in any pain.  The sex was just about enjoying yourself.

That, and there’s also lots of gargantuan cocks.

This is a long introduction however to my real focus which is a book that few people will ever actually read.  Tom of Finland: His Life and Times by F. Valentine Hooven III is out of print and so it’s unlikely that outside of a few die-hard fans the book will ever be encountered by the casual reader of queer studies.  It’s because the book is out of print that I felt compelled to write about it, but also because, as I noted before, Tom’s men are beautiful examples of what sex between men (and sex between people) should look like.

Hooven observes this as he examines Tom’s men:

The Third element of Tom’s art was its sense of humor.  For whatever reason, sex and laughter have been linked throughout history.  From Lysistrata to Tom Jones to Lolita, the preponderance of the great works of erotica have been comedies and even in the narrower field of hard-core pornography a large number of better works […] combine humor with their graphic depiction of sex.  Tom followed
firmly in this tradition and consciously imbued his drawings with a general sense of light-hearted play.  No heavy-handed drama, no sense of “the love that dare not speak its name” was permitted to intrude.  Even when Tom’s men steal and fight and tie one another up, there is an overall feeling of “Hey, that was fun.  Let’s do it again!”  (92-3).

It’s a pathetic state of affairs when this paragraph hits a familiar ear.  Hooven I would argue accurately sums up the problem of much of the early pornographic writing, or even simply romantic writing, of the time because anyone who has ever read much early queer fiction recognizes that much of it is nothing but queer people mourning their very existence.  This isn’t just my own observation, for even queer critics and historians have noted this tragedy in works that are now cannon of queer literature, the most obvious example being Radcliffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness.

The novel is a romance that was published in 1928 and told the story of two lesbians, one of which assumed a kind of personality and physical make-up that many would refer to as butch.  It’s a mode of being that assumes what some in culture would refer to as “masculine traits” but it retains the gender identification of female.  The Well of Loneliness was made a bit of hubbub when it was first published, and in their book Female Masculinity Jack Halberstam observes the gender matter in the novel, while observing this narrative trend:

Both novels [The Well of Loneliness & The Picture of Dorian Grey] depict homosexuality as congruent with some kind of gender inversion, and both depict the subterranean worlds of homosexuals as lonely drug dens filled with moral perversion.  […]  Some lesbian critics have begun the work of recuperating The Well of Loneliness by referencing it as a brave depiction of butch sexuality that replaces a model of lesbianism as a sin with medical and sociological models of the lesbian as invert and victim respectively.  (98).

I could get into a long explanation as to why many of the early queer authors were forced to write about homosexual existence as a morbid affair, but the simplest explanation is the fact that homosexuality was still considered either a vice or else a mental disorder.  Many homosexual people could face outright persecution, exile from loved ones, incarceration in mental hospitals where all manner of tragedies including lobotomy and electroshock could occur, and outright death sentences.  Is it any wonder then that homosexual life, and sex, was often portrayed by writers as gloomy and miserable?

Taking this knowledge into account Tom of Finland’s work is simply incredible for its time.  It’s not just that the art work is provocative and satisfies what is sometimes referred to as “hard-core pornography.”  One crucial element makes his work as powerful and dynamic as it is and Hooven explains it to his reader.

But there was one aspect of Tom’s work above all the others that made it unforgettable.  This element was the very one Tom worked the harde
st to add to his drawings.  It was partly a compendium of the three qualities already mentioned: the sense of humor, the feeling of immediacy, and the more and more blatant homosexuality; but it was more than just a sum of these three.  It could be as simple as a smile, yet it was one of the hardest things to draw deliberately; Tom managed to portray it.  Namely, his men were unmistakably happy.

Happy homosexuals?  That was new!  (94).

If the reader is not familiar with the history of homosexual people, this sentence could almost be eyerolling in its sentiment.  Current media being what it is, many people might immediately push back and wonder why this presentation was so unique.  Hell, just a casual glance through the perverted landscape of Tumblr is enough to make anyone question why would the presentation of happy queer men be so shocking or important?  My response to this, dear reader, is exactly the last line of Hooven’s analysis.  These happy homosexuals were new.

Queer artists interested in presenting homosexual sex, both in terms of serious art as well as pornography owe their freedom in this capacity to Tom of Finland because the man’s work established a precedent where men could illustrate sex between men as something that was fun.  And considering the presentation of sex that often occurs in art this is still something relevant.  Watching sex scenes in movies and T.V. shows and even in pornography, most of it isn’t about fun.  Sex is often just about scratching an itch, completing one’s sense of identity, showing it as part of a lifestyle, filling an emotional void, or at its worse, proving your virility.  There really hasn’t been any presentation of sex as something fun as far as I can see apart from a few obscure artists and Tom of Finland.

In fact, to be honest, the last sex scene I watched on television that made it appear that sex was something fun was the sex between Gabe and Samantha White on the Netflix show Dear White People, or the masturbation scene with Lionel.  Both of these scenes show people have sex or masturbating and at the end it’s clear that the act was about enjoying yourself and just having fun.

Looking at my own desire I think this is the reason why I keep returning to Tom of Finland over and over again, because while it is just about the itch of masturbation, there’s always another level in it for me.  I want my desire to be something healthy, and I want the expression of it to be something fun.  Even if I can’t have sex with another man, if I could I wouldn’t want the experience to be just about proving my virility or enjoying a lifestyle.  There should be an honest joy in fucking because fucking is supposed to be fun.

It would be enough to observe that Hooven notes Tom’s approach to illustrating gay men as happy and content, but one other characteristic of his work is noted and catalogued in this biography.  The reader will probably observe in the images of Tom’s work an attention to clothes, specifically the way men are dressed in jeans, leather, or military uniforms.  I’ll admit freely this is also part of the appeal of these men for me.  I’ve noted in several essays that growing up I felt less than fully confident in my masculinity, not out of misidentification with my gender, but because I didn’t feel like I was a “real man.”  This still exists to some extent (it’s hard to feel any kind of macho when you spend most of your working hours in dress pants and bow-ties), but part of the fun of my bisexuality has been discovering what kind of man turns me on, and it’s almost always working class men.

These men embody the kind of masculine ethos that I lacked with their denim, callused hands, and their down-to-earth attitudes.  And, if I can speak plainly, it’s mostly because they’re fucking hot as fuck.

This image of queer men however was something that, much like images of happy men, were unheard of.  Queer men of the previous era were resigned to the “invert” or else the “fairy,” characters who were effeminate, flambouyant, and almost always self-loathing.  It should be noted that effeminate queer men were and are legitimate personality types, and while not every queer man subscribes to that label no one should feel bad if they are a queen.  Still for many men this gender presentation wasn’t true to their selves and so they found in Tom of Finland’s work a mode of dress that matched their perception of what masculinity was.

Hooven writes:

From 1957 on, Tom’s Work set up a series of powerfully masculine images for large numbers of gay men.  In the wake of the 1969 Stonewall riots and the advent of gay pride, many of those men were no longer satisfied to merely lust after Tom’s men.  In the seventies, San Francisco’s “Castro clone” look—Levi’s, boots, and work shirts—swept the gay scene, and gay men began to try to be Tom’s men.  Even as the baby-boom gays aged during the eighties, they strove to emulate the Tom of Finland ideal.  More and more of them began working out; super-butch haircuts and outfits and attitudes spread in popularity.  So Tom’s work in the eighties presented an older but butcher male.  In a way, this alteration was a reflection of changes in gay male society that were in turn partially a reflection of Tom’s work in the fifties, sixties, and seventies.  (164-5).

I’ve divulged a lot about myself in this essay, and probably revealed aspects of my personal life many people were probably happy never knowing, but after I finished Tom of Finland: His Life and Times I realized that I had to write about this book, not just because of what Tom’s work has meant for me and my personal sexual development, but for millions of men across the world.  New generations of gay, bisexual, and queer young men will discover the man’s work and find in his images their own erotic truth.  They’ll find images of men that satisfy their erotic interest, and some of them will be so inspired that they’ll pick up a pen and start drawing.

Pornography as a mode of art does not receive a great deal of credit or respect, and studying it as I have it’s pretty clear not much of it deserves credit.  Pornography as an art is usually a back-scratcher: it’s designed to take care of an itch and then be laid aside and quickly forgotten.  Growing up the way I did, I realize however that pornography was an intimate part of my sexual development and has been for millions of young people.  As human beings progress forward into this Information age, online pornography is going to shape the sexual lives of young people and so the work of someone like Tom of Finland is not just an esoteric study, it’s something important to talk about.

If people are going to be exposed to pornography at young ages, it’s important then that they understand what healthy sex is.  Looking at the landscape of pornography Tom of Finland’s work is a beautiful exception because it encourages people to be themselves and be happy.  Rather than present sexuality as something violent or misogynistic, Tom’s work is just sexual play.  It’s appeal to the imagination where human beings can just imagine fun situations that can be repeated over and over again by turning the page and seeing a new angle or a new position.  It may be pornography, but at least it offers a healthy view into sexuality.

And, if I can make at least one more appeal, it offers a firm reminder that there’s something about a man in uniform.

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

All quotes taken from Tom of Finland: His Life and Times were provided from the First edition St. Martin’s Press hardback copy.

NOTE: This book is currently out of print, therefore tracking a copy down for yourself will be difficult…unless you follow the link below to amazon where you can buy a copy.  Tom of Finland is just too important to be forgotten

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Finland-His-Life-Times/dp/031209325X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496765681&sr=8-1&keywords=Tom+of+Finland+his+life+and+times

And if the reader would be interested in finding The Complete Kake Comics, you can follow the link below:

https://www.amazon.com/Finland-Complete-Comics-FINLAND-Hardcover/dp/B00QM0SW20/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496765696&sr=8-1&keywords=The+complete+kake+comics

If the reader is also interested, there exists an entire Library/Foundation dedicated to the life, art, and cultural preservation of Tom’s work entitled The Tom of Finland Foundation.  I’ve provided a link below to their website where the reader can become a member, or simply browse the artwork.  It’s no small comment to say I support this organization completely, philosophically, sexually, intellectually, etc.  Keep up the great work y’all!

https://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org/foundation/N_Home.html

 

 

 

**Writer’s Note**

My reader may have observed me using the word Queer in place of Gay for most of this essay.  I’ve decided that whenever I write about same-sex intimacy between men that I will use queer in place of Gay, not out of a desire of homosexual erasure, but more as a way of leveling the playing field.  I’m a bisexual man who prefers the term queer because my desire is pretty open ended.  Plus, not knowing the sexual identity of my reader I feel queer provides more of a safety net.  Writing out “queer man” is far simpler than “gay, bisexual, pansexual, man.”

If you hate me for this please remember that we’re all united in our love of cock.  It is, to quote the great philosopher, just fantastic.

 

 

***Writer’s Note***

I also found, during research, a link to an article about a film recently made about the life of Tom of Finland.  If the reader is interested simply follow the link below:

http://themuse.jezebel.com/the-political-pleasure-of-gay-sex-and-tom-of-finland-1794631278

I also found an article published in The Advocate about the lasting importance of Tom of Finland:

https://www.advocate.com/film/2017/5/24/why-tom-finlands-sex-courage-and-joy-matter-today