How Sex Scenes in Film Can Reshape Real Intimacy, With Intimacy Coordinator Ita O’Brien

**Mia Sorenti** (0:00)
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Where Great Minds Meet. I'm Senior Producer Mia Sorenti. How has the way we depict sex on screen changed the way we think about intimacy off it? And in an age of AI companions and increasingly digital relationships, what does genuine human connection look like? On today's episode, Ita O'Brien, the UK's leading intimacy coordinator, joins Olivia Petter, journalist, author and broadcaster, to discuss O'Brien's new book Intimacy, and how her work has transformed the portrayal of sex on screen while opening up wider conversations about consent, trust and physical connection.
Let's join our host, Olivia Petter, now with more.

**Olivia Petter** (0:39)
Hello, everyone. My name is Olivia Petter. I am a journalist and author, and I am thrilled to be here with Intelligence Squared to speak to the wonderful Ita O'Brien, the pioneering intimacy coordinator behind some of the most groundbreaking pieces of pop culture we've seen.
I'm talking about I May Destroy You, Sex Education, and Normal People, shows that completely revolutionized the way that we talk about and think about sex and intimacy on screen. And that was down to Ita's completely revolutionary, like I said, work. You know, this wasn't something that people were doing very long ago. It's still a very recent creation, very recent, very necessary creation.
And now she has written a book, Intimacy, a Field Guide to Finding Connection and Feeling Your Deep Desires. So I am thrilled to be talking to Ita about it today. So let's begin. I guess Ita, can you start us off by explaining why you decided to write this book? And I guess in a short summary, what you hope it offers people.

**Ita O'Brien** (1:43)
Lovely. So first of all, Olivia, I want to say it's an absolute pleasure to be here. And it's a delight to be invited by Intelligence Squared to talk with you and to share both the intimacy coordination work and the inspiration behind the book Intimacy.
So yes, I was offered to write this book. And what I loved was that the Penguin, sort of what they asked of me was to share what was behind the intimacy guidelines and fundamentally my movement practice. And I was absolutely delighted to open this out and bring this to the world because that's what I do in the work. I come from being a dancer, an actor, a movement teacher, a movement director. And actually what underpins all of the development and the creation of a really good intimate scene is supporting an actor to be in their body, to be articulate, to be listening to their body, to have tools to be able to transform and then to bring that into a relationship. And that's what I'm able to share through this book. But also in the sharing of the intimacy guidelines on set, that realization that the fundamental tenets, open communication, transparency, agreement and consent, clear choreography and closure, actually is a wonderful structure for us to bring into our everyday lived lives. And just that very first one, open communication around our intimate content, it flips the coin completely and opens out how we consider our intimate lives as something that's an open and important and considered part of our lives. And that's such a shift, whereas so many of us come from either religions or cultures or just an upbringing where there's secrecy and shame and that sort of aspect of expectation that you should know how to do it.
And that question of how isn't really opened out and thought about. And so that's where everybody sort of does it, sort of in the background, in the shadows. Whereas actually if we open out that communication, open out what do I want? What's right for me? What do I desire? Yeah. How does that work for me? What's working for me still? What's perhaps not working for me anymore? And having those conversations and bringing that into our intimate expression, then we can really start being exciting and really, you know, having wonderful intimate times with each other, not just when we first get together, but right the way through our lives.

**Olivia Petter** (4:11)
I mean, it's so important this work, not just on screen, but like you say, off screen too. And I think we're really seeing that with the development of this sector of the industry and the impact it's having on people and the conversations that are being started, that like you say, were previously shrouded in shame and stigma. I guess it sounds like quite an obvious question, but to those outside of the film and TV world, can you explain why getting intimacy on screen is so important and not just to the actors themselves filming those scenes, but also to the crew and the people who are watching back home?