Amanda Blumenthal on Being an Intimacy Coordinator for TV and Film

Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino

In the age of #MeToo, there has been a reckoning in Hollywood about sexual harassment and that extends to the way folks are treated during productions. Intimacy coordinator and founder of Intimacy Professionals Association Amanda Blumenthal joins Tristan Taormino to talk about this growing profession in Hollywood and beyond. She tells us what intimacy coordinators do, challenges they face on set, and what their training is like. She explores power dynamics on a production, how actors sometimes don’t feel like they can’t voice their sexual boundaries to a director, and why being an advocate for them is so important. Plus, she spills the tea on modesty garments (what are they?), sexual negotiation tips, and what happens when some directors don’t want her on their set.

Amanda Blumenthal is the founder of Intimacy Professionals Association which is one of the leading organizations in the world for training intimacy coordinators. Amanda was the first intimacy coordinator in Los Angeles, and has worked on hundreds of scenes involving intimacy. Amanda is a sought-after speaker on the topic of intimacy coordination and has spoken at the American Film Market, Women in Film, Film Independent, the USC Peter Stark Producing Program, and the Women’s Production Society, to name a few.

Additionally, she was a primary contributor to the SAG-AFTRA Standards and Protocols for the Use of Intimacy Coordinators, and continues to work closely with the union on their intimacy coordinator initiative. She has also consulted with the Producer’s Guild of America (PGA) on developing materials for their Independent Production Safety Initiative (IPSI) program, and was a contributor to the Time’s Up Guide to Working in Entertainment.

This show is sponsored by Calm.com and Intensity by PourMoi.com.

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