April 28 is King’s Day in the Netherlands, the national holiday celebrating its monarch’s birthday. This April 28, a series of giant cartoons has appeared all across Amsterdam showing the Dutch royal couple having oral sex. The provocative billboards, with their sex tips for men to better please their female partners, aim to address inequalities in sexual pleasure, such as the orgasm gap.

King’s Day is a big day for drinking, flirting and, for some, the hope to get laid. But women are set to benefit least from these sexual encounters, argues Jessica Stahl, the Amsterdam creative director and artist behind the modern-dating and taboo-breaking webtoon, @vanillacooldance, and creator of the campaign.

“With inequalities like the orgasm gap, aren’t our Queens just getting royally screwed,” asks Stahl? “I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen, by showing what it means to be a true king in the bedroom.”

For her campaign, Stahl has created bold illustrations advising men on royal etiquette in the bedroom, with tips and illustrations for all Kings to help close the orgasm gap. The message is being rolled out on the vanillacooldance Instagram, a blog, and street takeovers in Amsterdam’s city centre. This year’s turnout for King’s Day’s annual street celebrations made up for the past two pandemic years, a perfect opportunity to put the provocative illustrations up on life size posters to spark conversation and curiosity. 

And curiosity did spark. People of all genders lined up to take photos with the street art, wearing vanillacooldance stickers on their clothing and even stealing the posters to bring home. All spreading the message to close the orgasm gap. 

“When you put your art into the world it takes on a life of its own. I was blown away by the response from the community both online and on the streets. It feels like I sparked something that lives beyond me and that’s an incredible feeling,” Stahl commented.

Of course, no provocative campaign goes without a little pushback. Stahl has received a few threats of calls to the police and references to the artwork as “porn” and to that she says, “That’s what this is all about, to spark conversation. These (men) are exactly the ones that could benefit the most from it.”