A horny winter’s night with the Tom of Finland crowd

“As long as you’re not advocating for our rights to be taken away, you can wear some assless chaps,” said New York City council member Chi Ossé, one of the starry partygoers among a sea of Leather-clad lads.

Photo: Hunter Abrams

“I think Andy Cohen is here!”

If these are the first words you hear upon entering a party, you know you are likely in the company of New York’s most plugged-in Gays and girls, and it’s probably going to be a good time. That was certainly the case when I walked into the design studio Apparatus’s crimson-coated Midtown showroom in December for the Tom of Finland Foundation’s 41st-anniversary soirée and found myself in a sea of leather-clad lads, all gathered in their most sensual and self-expressive attire to celebrate the enduring legacy of the late Finnish artist, who lives on through the foundation that bears his name and houses one of the world’s largest Queer art archives.

Photo: Hunter Abrams

The vibe of the night was, in a word, horny: As they arrived in the main room, guests were greeted by a life-sized bronze nude sculpture (which had been dressed in a harness just for the event), and a gigantic leather-boot-shaped cake by the New York baker Yip.Studio. In a festive touch, bondage-themed wreaths—crafted by Apparatus’s founder and creative director Gabriel Hendifar—hung from the room’s walls.

This event, according to chief curator Brooke Wise, was intended to “reframe Tom of Finland’s legacy for the present moment, honoring its roots and positioning it within a contemporary cultural and aesthetic conversation.”

Photo: Hunter Abrams

Eventually, I made my way through the room to marvel at Tom’s iconic homoerotic drawings up close: detailed depictions of ultra-ripped bikers, policemen, soldiers, and manly men of all sorts, all impressively well-endowed, muscles bulging, feeling and fucking each other for all to see. As I began speaking to guests taking in the work, I was curious to hear how their own encounters with Tom of Finland shaped their experiences as Gay men, and their own relationships to masculinity, especially since we at GQ have spent so much time this year considering what makes a “modern man.”

Many men I spoke to at the party agreed that Tom’s hypermasculine homoeroticism expanded their view of what their own Queerness could look like: “Typically, Gayness is depicted as quite effeminate,” said artist Ricardo Johnson, “but this form of masculinity [in Tom’s art] is typically depicted as Straight, and so to see it in a way that is succinctly Queer, I think has a certain level of power, because it shows what the multiplicity of Queerness is.”

“I love it,” said Donald C. Shorter Jr., one of the Foundation’s artists-in-residence. “In terms of Leather culture and Leather history and Leather community gear … having a Muir cap was something that was earned and given to you by your community, right? So that’s sort of an old guard approach to Leather. But the young kids are like the new guard, and they’re saying, ‘You know what, if I want to wear a Muir cap, and if I look good in it, if it makes me feel strong and sexy, I’m gonna do it.’ I love being able to see that people are connecting to BDSM leather fetish and kink through a fashion lens.” That said, he added, “I do wish sometimes that there was more connection to people knowing the history.”

New York City councilman Chi Ossé, right, attended the soirée. Photo: Waylon Bone

 

“For something that is supposed to stoke fear in our community to be repurposed in a very sexy, tongue-in-cheek, almost camp way is really how you defang some of the aggressive conservatism and history we’ve seen.”

And make no mistake: “Gay people are fucking cool. Everything that Gay people do, Straight people always follow,” said New York City councilmember Chi Ossé. “Everyone wants to be a little Gay. And you know what? I welcome it. As long as you’re not advocating for our rights to be taken away, you can wear some assless chaps.”

I pressed Ossé on that last thought—on Tom’s particular subversive project of reimagining uniformed military and law enforcement figures often associated with authoritarianism, censorship, and oppression of the Gay community, in a homoerotic context.

“I think it kind of defangs fascism,” the councilman said. “For something that is supposed to stoke fear in our community to be repurposed in a very sexy, tongue-in-cheek, almost camp way is really how you defang some of the aggressive conservatism and history we’ve seen.”

“Yeah,” I replied, nodding. “It’s like the artistic version of, imagine the audience in their underwear.”

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE BY SASHA MUTCHNIK

Published: 2nd January 2026

Categorised in: News