A Show About Porn Is Paving the Way for Hollywood’s On-Set Sex Scenes

A show about porn is paving the way for intimacy coordinators on mainstream Hollywood sets. Last October, HBO’s The Deuce—a fictionalized chronicle of America’s adult entertainment industry starting in the Times Square of the 1970s—worked with an intimacy coordinator on scenes involving sexual situations and nudity. The coordinator’s work went over so well that HBO announced it would require a coordinator on all of its scripted shows. And all of that’s going so well that SAG-AFTRA recently announced it will collaborate with intimacy coordinators to establish “new, relevant policies for nudity and simulated sex; define the duties and standards for intimacy coordinators on productions; and specify acceptable training, vetting and qualifications of intimacy coordinators.” 

Meanwhile, ABC’s Nightline prime-time news show, ran a special about intimacy coordinators earlier this week. On shows like The Deuce, where sexual situations aren’t just titillating but integral parts of the plot, intimacy coordinators act as “professionals who work as ‘movement coaches, liaisons between actors and production, and advocates for actors in relation to scenes involving nudity and simulated sex.’” 

Alicia Rodis, a former actor who now works with the Intimacy Coordinators International, told Nightline, “We are…not actually having sex on set but we are telling the story of that…It’s amazing how much better the product is when the actors know they’re going to work and are not going to be sexually assaulted that day.” Hollywood’s steps toward regulation, transparency, and explicit consent during scenes involving sexuality and nudity comes after the #metoo movement exposed movie and TV power players as violators of sexual consent—including industry titan Harvey Weinstein.

The work of intimacy coordinators and the new SAG-AFTRA’s soon-to-be-codified standards around mainstream sex scenes sound as if they mirror the planning policies in place at Kink.com, where new consent documents are utilized prior to adult scenes to establish what performers and others on set can expect. And, given that all of this started at HBO’s The Deuce, a show about pornography, this is yet another example of the porn industry leading the way for mainstream Hollywood’s handling of sexuality. It’s nice to see Hollywood catching up!

Director stock photo by Francisco Navarro from FreeImages