The Finnish postal service revealed 33 new stamp designs this week, and tucked among the winter scenes and autumnal gardens is this: a man’s bare behind, lifted from a design drawn by one of the country’s most prominent illustrators, Touko Laaksonen, known as “Tom of Finland.”
The stamps, which will debut in September, feature three of Laaksonen’s drawings bearing his trademark leather-bound muscle men. The images embody the “confident and proud homoeroticism” of Laaksonen’s work, according to Itella Posti. “The sheet portrays a sensual life force and being proud of oneself,” Timo Berry, a graphic designer who helped select the art, said in a statement. “There is never too much of that in this northern country.”
The U.S. Postal Service recently said that it will release a new stamp to honor Harvey Milk, the gay rights activist assassinated in San Francisco in the late-1970s. The stamp, which has yet to be revealed, will be dedicated at the White House in late-May. That will make Milk the first openly gay figure on an American stamp.
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