Last October, HBO announced that all sex scenes in their period porn drama The Deuce would be overseen by Intimacy Directors International co-founder Alicia Rodis, who later went on to oversee scenes in Crashing and the Deadwood movie, among others. On Sunday, SAG-AFTRA announced their plan to work with Rodis to create a standardized set of guidelines for intimacy coordinators, the role of which is to prevent sexual harassment and exploitation during the filming of nudity or any other kind of “hyper-exposed” work. SAG’s ultimate goal? To encourage productions to hire a coordinator of their own, in order to ensure that all of the industry’s sex scenes are on the up and up.
“Our goal is to normalize and promote the use of intimacy coordinators within our industry,” SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris said in the organization’s release. “Intimacy coordinators provide an important safety net for our members doing hyper-exposed work. At a time when the industry still needs to make great changes, our initiative will ensure the safety and security of SAG-AFTRA members while they work and respects the boundaries of actors.”
According to the union’s announcement, “the guidelines will seek 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.”
