ISSUE_03: Black Men in Tom’s World
from
Recon News
13 September 2021
In Tom's universe, all men are created equal, and are equal to fuck or be fucked. There is no point in using the term intercourse; Tom would only find it demeaning. His men were basic and unpretentious, following their manly instincts and enjoying every minute of it.
There was a period when Tom's primary market was Bob Mizer's magazine, The Athletic Model Guild. Mizer commissioned work from Tom on a monthly basis, but his drawings of black men couldn't be printed in the U.S. at the time, being deemed unacceptable. This didn't deter Tom, who drew whatever he found desirable. Tom depicted interracial sex and showed men getting plowed by both races. He found this naturally appealing, and put the same amount of detail into his renderings of black men as he did of white.
Tom's portrayals of men of colour found their market through European publishers. Tourists would purchase them abroad, bring them home to the States, then reproduce them and send copies to friends. It wasn't that gays of that era weren't enjoying interracial friendships or sexual relations, but visual depictions of such activity were strictly taboo.
Over the years, the occasional critic has depicted Tom in a less than favourable light, asserting that his drawings were somehow disrespectful to the black male. This is simply not the case. In Tom's world black men are forces of maleness, possessing as much testosterone as their white brothers; equal and equally desirable. Rather, once again we find Tom doing his part to bring males together through mutual pleasure and camaraderie.
Tom portrayed men of different races and different skin colours as equals, acting out their natural sexualities long before it was conventionally acceptable to do so.
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