Dom Orejudos, also known as Etienne and Stephen, was a ballet dancer, choreographer and erotic artist in Chicago and beyond, finding himself choreographing and dancing domestically and abroad until his death from AIDS on Sept. 24, 1991.

Orejudos was born in Chicago July 1, 1933, and was an accomplished student and artist from the start. His talents included orchestra, gymnastics, dance, and drawing as well as a high GPA during his time in high school. In a series of interviews conducted with Orejudos, now held at the Leather and Archives Museum, he recalls having a strong sense of self at a very early age, identifying as gay and feeling content with this discovery in his early teens. In fact, his gay erotica drawings were already very much developed when Orejudos was a teen, and he was sought out by Chuck Renslow to draw gay erotica commercially at that time. Renslow also happened to be very taken by Orejudos the moment he saw him, and their relationship developed into a romantic one soon after meeting. Orejudos' art was released under the pseudonyms of Etienne and Stephen, and his work as an erotica artist started when he was still in high school. Simultaneously, Orejudos was studying ballet at the Ellis-DuBoulay School of Ballet, and so these two parts of him really developed side by side.