Shiny black latex gleams from a bright spotlight on an intimate set in a small Brooklyn studio. The atmosphere is erotic and welcoming, commanded by fetish art photographer Lanee Bird. Carefully framed in Bird’s lens are two models—Mila and Mina, both queer women of color who exemplify the photographer’s fierce coterie. Everyone on set for the exclusive Playboy shoot, including Bird and her beauty and styling hands, are also queer people of color.

“I’m proud to be a part the queer community, the kink community and the sex industry space,” Bird tells Playboy. “My models are always folks that share a like-mindedness around the expression of pleasure and eroticism.”

While proud today, Bird is a member of a marginalized community that hasn’t always been afforded the privilege of free creative expression. For decades, fetish photography—leaning heavily on the mystique of smoke and mirrors—has only been alluded to subtly. From afar, this realm gets a judgmental wrap, raising eyebrows with acronyms like BDSM, XXX and S&M, and images of women in lingerie or suggestive physical positions often bear the weight of society’s judgement. The women posing on Bird’s set, however, are strong and beautiful, fearlessly moving through the space while debunking traditional societal norms in the process. Rather than catering to the viewer, Bird aims to highlight the people being photographed.

After a year in isolation on top of decades of unjust structural changes in government, members of the LGBTQIA+ community often have more to prove than than other citizens. Now may be the apex of history’s reckoning with sexuality.

“It’s a time to be loud when we are so often encouraged to be quiet,” says Mina. “It’s a time to truly exist without shame because acceptance isn’t at question. Every month is Pride month when you’re queer, but essentially, it’s a time to feel safe and protected by those who aren’t. There’s nothing like sexual liberation. It’s a power that no one can take from us.”

As the world slowly starts to reopen after a year of quarantine, perhaps people will begin to open up, too.

“The isolation of this past year has left me feeling disconnected from my body and my ability to access sexual expression,” says Bird. “Celebrating Pride as we move through this pandemic means finding space to safely reconnect with queer friends, partners, and chosen family.”

While embracing self-love, a range of expression in sexuality and a supportive community, Bird harnesses her creative talent as a photographer to feel sensual, honest and free. Queer sexual expression, she insists, cannot be separated from queerness as an identity. These ideas are synonymous facets in everyday life, and celebrating this unabashedly is essential.

“Our erotic desires have been both politicized and vilified. While queer folks have been given more of a spotlight within popular culture, our visibility can still be watered down or softened for mainstream consumption,” says Bird. “Shooting erotic or fetish photography has always been a place of catharsis for me. It allows me to celebrate unapologetic gayness, femininity, power and eroticism.”

On set, Mila and Mina were encouraged to unapologetically be themselves, personally choosing details that express their individual identities, such as embellished nails, short hair and exposed tattoos. By doing so, they took control of their own representation and eschewed tokenization.

“Representation is only the foundation to create unity,” says Bird. “The mutual support I feel within the queer community has always given me a sense of belonging.”

Through photography, Bird also hopes to inspire other queer creatives to find and propel inclusivity—something she says has been crucial to her survival as a queer person. Today, she aims to celebrate her queerness in all forms, and produce work that mimics that. For this shoot, her models resonated with this pivotal factor, and leaned into who they were to be comfortable and feel seen.

“Eroticism is one way of being comfortable in who you are, and it’s important for me to express that,” says Mila. For Mila, donning a shaved head and ornamented nails, and letting her tattoos and piercings be seen makes her feel most authentic. “We exist as ourselves in every way, even when we’re subjected to environments that don’t celebrate us. By unapologetically being beacons to others, we show that accepting your true self is something to strive for in life.”

And so it was that the models moved from one stance to the next, posing in positions that make quintessential fetish look like fine art. For the shoot, Bird took a deep-dive into her fascination with fetish photography of the past, which she collects in an archive of publications from the 1980s and ‘90s. Recast through a contemporary lens (and accentuated with styling by Giancarlos Kunhardt), Bird’s creative direction for the shoot presents a type of femininity that takes up space. Materials and accessories like latex bodysuits, stiletto heels, spiked necklaces, and hosiery held to the waist with lingerie clasps add to the photographic power.

“My style is an extension of my fluid sexuality. It affirms that my role can change, my posture can shift. It’s knowing that clothing can’t be exclusive to anyone, all of it is for all of us,” says Mina. “And since being a femme can come with this unspoken invisibility (straight passing), the smallest details can bring me to a place of otherworldliness. A place of being proud, being different; it’s our magic.”

But admiring a photo for its beauty or boldness is different than seeing yourself represented in the imagery itself. Such is the case for Bird and her peers in the images captured by some of her favorite photographers. “Many of the photographers within fetish art history have been cis white men shooting white women through a very heterosexual gaze,” says Bird. “I use imagery from the likes of Helmut Newton, Günter Blum, and Bob Carlos Clarke as reference points when lighting and framing my photographs.”

With this shoot, however, Bird’s goal was to recontextualize the subject through the casting of QPOC models and allow her own gaze as a queer person to reframe the erotic. While fine art remains mostly subjective, hinging more on personal preference and less on aesthetics, she wanted her images to be seen in the same arena. These aren’t the hidden photos you keep stashed away, secretly thumbing through alone. Instead, they’re the ones featured in your coffee table book, displayed in your hallway or hanging in your favorite gallery.

“Fetish photography has been seen as a lowbrow art form,” she says. “Reclaiming my work as fine art allows it to exist in a variety of spaces that may have been historically homophobic, anti-porn, and anti-sex work.”

Today, as archetypes of contemporary society, this community is creating its own narrative. By deftly deploying optimism for more understanding and less judgement, they’ll be seen in conjunction with the rest of the world, encouraging a more compelling, free, and artistic idea of self-expression. Not just for this month, but for every month, this type of everlasting resilience deservers everlasting pride.

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