Happy Birthday Tom !
I just found out that it was Tom of Finland's birthday yesterday - he was born on May 8th, 1920. He wasn't the first 20th Century artist to idealise and eroticise the male body, and others were playing with the same sort of images of hyper-masculine men, but he really made it work in a way that paved the way for so many others. Maybe he was just the right guy at the right time. It's pretty hard to find any of his work that still doesn't resonate with how at least some gay men like to perceive themselves, with how some gay men like to be. Think of all the hours spent in gyms, those tuna and brown rice diets, all that work to get the six-pack and the big biceps, that "perfect" body, so often the one that Tom was drawing. Tight jeans, leather jackets, the massive cock and perfect bubble-butt. Of course, no matter how hard you work it you can't do much about increasing your cock size. But there has always been this gay tradition of eroticising the...