Nice Package

Tom of Finland has been dismissed as a smut-peddler, a pornographer and a pervert — as if those things were bad. But the late Finnish artist (born Touko Laaksonen), who drew muscled men with barrel chests, bubble butts and enormous packages having sex with equally endowed guys, may just be misunderstood. Tom of Finland XXL (available now) is the appropriately large tome — 666 pages — that aims to reposition Laaksonen’s body of work as more than just hot bodies.

As essayist Camille Paglia explains, Laaksonen “is meditating on one of the great themes of Western culture, the pagan glorification of the ideal male body.” His exquisitely detailed drawings fetishize the hypermasculinity of soldiers, sailors and bikers. When those images first appeared in the U.S. in the 1950’s, they began to upend the perception that gays were “pansies and poufs,” writes Tom of Finland Foundation president Durk Dehner. “He set the proud love of man by man in full motion.”

And he did so with a sly sense of humor. Many of the 1000-plus works featured have a tongue in cheek quality, like the naked lumberjack sailing down a river on a huge log while sporting an impressive erection, or the hunky Santa Claus with a come-hither smirk, covering his crotch with a stocking. As you stare at the image, you can ponder Laaksonen’s important themes. Or you can imagine how big that stocking stuffer is…


Tom of Finland XXL is available now from Taschen.