A bizarre cafe exhibits a sex museum featuring erotic statues and paintings in Thailand.

The desserts and coffee shop called Green Lantern Cafe in the Thai-capital Bangkok was decorated with penis figurines, topless dolls, and nude paintings.

Shop owner Watjanasin Charuwattanakitti, 40, said the cafe had always been mistaken as a Marvel superhero-themed coffee shop but it was actually a tribute to the country’s sex industry history.

He said: ‘Thai brothels used to leave outside of their doors green lanterns to indicate that they had paid taxes, before the profession was outlawed in 1960.

‘They call it the red lantern district, because that’s what they see in the movies. But in Thailand actually, we used green ones.’

Further inside the cafe is the Museum of Sex which displays pornographic magazines, erotic recreations of cave art, penis-shaped amulets. A glass case full of sex toys with signage that says ‘illegal’ could also be found inside the cafe.

Watjanasin added that the glass case reflects his views on the legalisation of sex work and toys in the Buddhist country.

He said: ‘I believe that sex toys should be legal. I think it could save a lot of problems. For the prostitutes, I want to support them to be legal too. They have the right to work. It’s a professional job, it’s been in the world for a long long time.

The artworks inside the cafe were from Kamavijitra – the first museum devoted to Thai erotic artwork.

Every art piece in this museum he curated for ten years were from the collection of his father Uthaiphon who started the hobby when Watjanasin was only five-years-old.

The cafe was planned to be converted into a bar but it had been postponed due to the pandemic.