The rise of intimacy coaches
With explicit scenes making their way into Bollywood films and OTT projects, a new job profile has been created — an Intimacy Coordinator who is trained to supervise scenes involving love, sex... and ensure the actors are provided a safety net that respe
While intimate scenes have always been part of Bollywood stories, the moments were symbolically conveyed — the meeting of two flowers during a romantic scene, or a candle blownout during a rape scene, for instance. But such codes have now been replaced by scenes that look real. And this has created a new job profile — Intimacy Coordinator.
To put it in simple language, an intimacy coordinator is trained to supervise scenes involving nudity, simulated sex, sexual violence and other sensitive scenes. The IC provides an important safety net for performers that respects the boundaries of actors. When there is a sense of safety and open communication, actors feel brave enough to engage creatively in the making of intimacy scenes, specially in these days of bold content on OTT.
HOLLYWOOD HISTORY
Remember the rape scene from the Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango In Paris, where the female protagonist, Maria Schneider, was not even informed about the scene to evoke ‘authenticity’ leading to a sexual assault?
Things are different now. Intimacy coordinators have found a place in Hollywood. While Londonbased talent firm Carey Dodd Associates wanted to use guidelines developed by Ita Obrien, HBO started using intimacy coordinators for all its movies and shows with intimate scenes.
Ita O’ Brien was used in the 2019 Netflix film Sex Education a few months after Emile Meade — an actress who skinned her way through the HBO film The Deuce based on the American porn industry of the 1970s — complained about physical and emotional discomfort while performing acts of sex on screen. Meade wanted HBO executives to be present on screen, and so the HBO higher-ups hired Alicia Rodis as the network’s firstever Intimacy Coordinator and made the post compulsory.
BOLLYWOOD TALES
In Bollywood, Tanushree Dutta complained about Nana Patekar while shooting for a song in the movie Horn Ok Pleassss, indicating that some intimate dancing moves were added on the day of shoot, and she put her foot down and stepped out of the film. “Sex scenes always depend on the gaze of the director and also need a handpicked crew,” says Pooja Bhatt, who preferred to shoot the intimate scenes between Bipasha Basu and John Abraham in Jism 2 herself, despite having a director — Amit Saxena — on board. Pooja also shot the scenes between adult star-turnedBollywood actress Sunny Leone in the film.
CERTIFICATION COUNTS
It maybe recalled journalistturned-filmmaker Ramkamal Mukherjee, who worked with Celina Jaitley in the film Season’s Greetings, had hired the services of Manisha Basu — a choreographer, to co-ordinate the intimate scenes in his film. “Honestly, I had never thought that I would get a profile like this. My association with films has mostly been as a choreographer and that was my initial role in Seasons Greetings too.
TURN TO PAGE 2
that