Hollywood Moves to Make Intimacy Coordinators a Formalized Job

For the past several years the use of intimacy coordinators, liaisons who make sure actors are comfortable while filming scenes involving nudity or sex, has become increasingly normalized on movie and televisions sets following allegations of sexual abuse and harassment across the entertainment industry. Now, in an effort to further establish and regulate intimacy coordinator roles across the industry, SAG-AFTRA is launching an accreditation program and a registry for coordinators.

Variety reports that SAG-AFTRA has created a new accreditation system to set standards for intimacy coordinator training programs. The training programs must be led by someone with at least 200 days of experience working as an intimacy coordinator, be 75 hours long, and have the curriculum approved by SAG-AFTRA. The union will also create a registry for intimacy coordinators who meet a certain level of experience and training, and who also possess anti-harassment, mental health, and trauma training.

SAG-AFTRA also announced a new initiative called Safe Place, a tool on the union’s app that allows people to confidentially report sexual harassment on set. The complains will be handled by the union’s Equity & Inclusion team who will work with the person who filed the complaint on what action to take, Deadline reports.

In 2020 SAG-AFTRA released guidelines for intimacy coordinators, but the accreditation and registry take those guidelines one step further, ensuring that intimacy coordinators hired on sets are approved by the union.