But in 2017, that silhouette has been absorbed, gentrified, and algorithmized. The "Tom of Finland" man is a filter on Grindr. He is a meme on Twitter (#leatherdaddy). He is a $3,000 S&M harness sold in a SoHo boutique window, displayed next to a scented candle named "Masculine."
Touko Laaksonen (Tom of Finland) drew the impossible man: the exaggerated latissimus dorsi, the jaw like a granite block, the leather-clad thigh that could anchor a ship. In the 1950s-80s, these were secret codes—propaganda for the persecuted, a utopia of strength when weakness was a death sentence. tom of finland -2017-