Though many of his works were plainly homoerotic, they flew in the face of stereotypical views that saw gay men as weak or effeminate. Tom’s men were lumberjacks, and policemen, and sailors, and soldiers Tom’s men were men who clearly liked being men.
In the 1960s, greater sexual freedoms in general led to the decriminalization of male sexual images in U.S.
publications, and Tom’s drawings reached a much wider circulation than they had in the years immediately following WWII. Though he became particularly popular in America, the early 1970s saw his work being reproduced all over the world.
