Tom Of Finland’s Men Are Finally Moving, Thanks To AI
An Instagram account has done something that turns out to be harder to look away from than expected. The account @celeb.aipimp has used artificial intelligence (AI) to animate the legendary drawings of Tom of Finland, and the results are genuinely impressive.
Who was Tom of Finland?
If the name is new to you, here’s the short version. Tom of Finland was the pseudonym of Finnish artist Touko Valio Laaksonen (1920–1991), widely regarded as the most influential creator of gay homoerotic imagery in the 20th century. Working almost entirely in pencil, he produced over 3,500 drawings across four decades, featuring exaggeratedly muscular men in leather, uniforms, and very little else.
His work didn’t just titillate, it also helped reshape how gay men saw themselves at a time when that was genuinely radical. His illustrations profoundly influenced late 20th-century gay culture and sexuality, their rise in popularity coinciding with gay law reform successes and the political emergence of LGBTQIA+ communities from the 1960s onward.
When asked if he was embarrassed that all his art showed men having sex, he disagreed emphatically: “I work very hard to make sure that the men I draw having sex are proud men having happy sex!” as biographer Valentine Hooven II recalled.
His work is now held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and SFMOMA, among others. In 1984, he co-founded the Tom of Finland Foundation (ToFF) in Los Angeles to preserve his catalogue and support erotic art broadly.
So what is @celeb.aipimp actually doing?
The account describes itself as a tribute project. Using AI tools, it has taken Tom of Finland’s signature style, those bold, hyper-masculine figures in leather caps and boots, and brought them to life with fluid, cinematic movement. One post notes: “I just wanted to see those legendary leather gods finally move.” The response online has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, though some followers have pointed out that the characters’ movements could feel more masculine, a critique the account has taken on board.
Does this raise copyright concerns?
That’s the more complicated question. The Tom of Finland Foundation has previously spoken out about AI and queer art. The Foundation shared concerns from queer artists who discovered that AI apps were using their artwork to train models without permission, with one artist describing the process as “a slap in the face of artists that spend their whole lives working to create a body of work.”
The broader legal picture remains unsettled. AI-generated work styled after a specific artist occupies genuinely murky legal territory, and courts worldwide are still working through what constitutes infringement versus inspiration. Whether this account crosses that line is, for now, an open question.
What’s not in question is the craftsmanship on display. Go see for yourself at @celeb.aipimp on Instagram.
