It’s a Tuesday night in Amsterdam. Along the banks of the IJ river in the east of the city, between a gym and a bagel chain, people filter into a low-lit room lined with cushions and chairs. The space looks more like a tea room than a performance venue. The lights dim and a man emerges at the front.

With collectors increasingly searching out these erotic artworks, this once-obscured genre is starting to take on mainstream appeal.

Juggling both professions might not be intuitive for some, but he’s far from the only one turning to sex as a career. Since the arrival of OnlyFans in 2016 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are taking up sex work—a trend that has only been compounded by the cost of living crisis.

Sophie takes a deep breath before heading down the concrete steps into what looks like an underground cellar, its dark entrance concealing the feverish passions within. (Her name, and all names in this story, have been changed to protect privacy.) She takes a step forward and relaxes. She knows this passage well. What might seem like an unassuming hole-in-the-wall to many is a gateway into a world of fantasy – a party where (almost) anything goes. She grabs her partner’s hand and walks ahead.

The fictional villains of Disney films are both revered and feared, but their inspiration took root in real individuals—most of whom were queer. From The Little Mermaid’s Ursula to The Lion King’s Scar, these characters were queer-coded—an incorporation of stereotypical traits and characteristics like pronounced femininity or masculinity often associated with queer people—inspired from a time when depictions of homosexuality were taboo in motion pictures.