Another day, another ill-informed and irresponsible comment from an actor opposing the role of intimacy coordinators on film sets.
“I can’t imagine having somebody come up to me and say, ‘Do you mind if they put their hand here?’ That’s just another person in the room. Either we work it out or we don’t,” Basinger said. “I don’t see all of this need for supervised visits.” First, “another person in the room”? That’s literally the point. Second, I believe the “either we work it or we don’t” attitude is the reason for Me Too. Third, supervised visits??? Tell me you have no idea what an intimacy coordinator is without telling me you have no idea what an intimacy coordinator is.
Ironically enough, at another point in the interview, Basinger explained her initial trepidation in accepting her role in 9½ Weeks. If you haven’t seen the erotic drama, the film follows a woman who has a BDSM-tinged affair. According to Basinger, she feared it would take an “emotional toll” and it took amendments from the director for her to finally agree to it. Sounds like the kind of negotiation that could’ve possibly been aided by a sort of on-set advocate…another person in the room, if you will.
Basinger’s take comes two months after Oscar nominee, Mikey Madison, told the Hollywood Reporter that an intimacy coordinator wasn’t on set while making Anora.
“For our film, it was a choice that I made; the filmmakers offered me, if I wanted, an intimacy coordinator. Mark Eydelshteyn, who plays Ivan, and I decided it would be best to just keep it small,” Madison said. “My character is a sex worker, and I had seen Sean’s films and know his dedication to authenticity. I was ready for it. As an actress, I approached it as a job.”
Basinger and Madison are hardly alone. In fact, at this point, you could erect an entire Hall of Fame featuring the worst opinions on intimacy coordinators. A number of actors—many of them male—like Penn Badgley and Sean Bean have discounted the need for intimacy coordinators on set. “It would inhibit me more because it’s drawing attention to things,” Bean said of having an intimacy coordinator in the room in 2022. “Somebody saying, ‘Do this, put your hands there, while you touch his thing…’ I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise.” Jennifer Aniston also balked at intimacy coordinators after being offered one on The Morning Show. “I’m from the olden days, so I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ They said, ‘Where someone asks you if you’re OK,’ and I’m like, ‘Please, this is awkward enough!’” Aniston said in December 2023. “We’re seasoned—we can figure this one out.”
Thanks to the on-set advocacy of actor Emily Meade in 2018—who was then starring in the HBO series, The Deuce—the network hired Alicia Rodis, a performer now credited with pioneering the role of intimacy coordinators on sets, who’s since become a consultant on the network’s productions.
“I said to them, ‘I want there to be somebody on the set of this show—and all HBO shows—that is solely there to facilitate, protect, and to advocate in sex scenes, much like a stunt coordinator when dealing with physical violence,’” Meade told Jezebel in 2023. “I thought there should be someone there who didn’t have any motives other than their job.”
I don’t know why this is such a hard concept to get!
