Author Archive for: Adam Thorburn

Confronting Tom of Finland

Sexist, Racist, Misogynistic.

Tom of Finland is celebrated for his assertion of a masculine homosexuality. Was this revolutionary, asks Adam Thorburn, or were darker cultural forces at work?

“Lurking behind every image of Tom’s masculine gods is the specter of a limp-wristed homosexual. Tom of Finland’s career as a pornographer can be regarded as a mission to rescue homosexuality from the contamination of effeminacy.”