Sunday, November 07, 2010

The History of Sex: Tom of Finland

When Tom of Finland (born Touko Laaksonen in May 1920) died on this day in 1991, he left behind him a legacy few artists would have dared; a body of work as oversized as the bodies his work depicted - 3500 drawings in all - the vast majority of them explicitly gay in nature. Love them or hate them (there seems to be no middle ground) they represent a huge risk taken by the artist who drew them, and for many years a similar risk for the men who possessed them.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at PhotobucketInformed by an early attraction to working men, Laaksonen gradually morphed into the grand-daddy of the leather scene, demonstrating an unabashed appreciation for tough guys, uniforms, and even - horror of horrors! - 'sexualizing the enemy' (which is a phrase professional homosexuals use). If nothing else, he helped to disabuse the notion that gay male sex was some lavender-scented thing that happened between two hairdressers but an all-male activity - unlike those butch straights, whose boinking always includes at least one delicate, floral-scented female.

With all this talk about man-on-man action (not to mention the research I was forced to do) I have to go now and... Uh... Lavender-scent my hairdresser*.

*Which is an extraordinary euphemism, I must admit!
*
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3 comments:

Gavin said...

Kake!

michael sean morris said...

I see my comment bait worked.

I'm torn between two possible responses:

a) Who wants Kake?

b) There's always room for Kake!

As a gay man whose sexuality has been much-informed (for good or ill or a bit of both) by porn, I must defer to the master of the erotic.

I must have been about 11 the first time I saw one of his drawings, and I still have the weird feeling in my tummy whenever I see them, even as unrealistic as they are.

lcdseattle said...

I really like much of his work and had one piece until the divorce and "the other half" got it. : (