Intimacy coordinators have said a resounding “yes” to being represented by SAG-AFTRA.
The group voted unanimously to organize with the guild in a National Labor Relations Board election, in hopes that the union will represent them in any dealings with the major studios, SAG-AFTRA announced Tuesday.
The next step will be negotiating the group’s first contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
“In these sobering times with looming threats to environmental protections and women’s equality, it is refreshing to see the entertainment industry’s recognition of intimacy coordinators and their important contribution to productions and to performers in intimate scenes,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement. “We at SAG-AFTRA are proud to include this esteemed group of trained professionals as the newest to join our member body. May this continue to carve the path of elevated consideration for the feelings of safety for people and planet.”
SAG-AFTRA has been working with intimacy coordinators for many years, given their close working relationship with actors. In 2022, SAG-AFTRA passed a resolution to create a path toward offering membership to intimacy coordinators, and this appears to be that plan in action.
Most of the union’s efforts prior to the NLRB vote have included working to more clearly define and regulate the role of intimacy coordinators for several years, even prior to passing that resolution two years ago. Intimacy coordinators choreograph scenes containing intimate content and/or nudity and help facilitate any dialogue between performers and executives about such scenes.
The position has become much more widespread, mandated by most studios now, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and SAG-AFTRA has been rolling out guidelines, protocols and qualifications for the position ever since. This latest step to officially organize the group would allow the union to put even stricter mandates in place to regulate the profession.
SAG-AFTRA announced the NLRB election in September, following a bit of controversy in this realm earlier in the year, when an intimacy coordinator on the set of the Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman-starring Miller’s Girl, shared details about the film’s intimate scenes, which SAG-AFTRA said violated a confidentiality agreement.
Since then, it has tightened its Standards and Protocols for the use of Intimacy Coordinators and threatened to remove any professionals from its registry who violate the terms.
