Intimacy Directors and Coordinators Podcast

Industry Drama

• IDC • Season 1 • Episode 9

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🎙️ Podcast Show Notes Introduction

What kind of community are we building as intimacy professionals? As our field continues to grow, so do the conversations, disagreements, and differing approaches to the work. In this episode, Jessica Steinrock and Marie Percy take an honest look at the social dynamics shaping the intimacy profession today. They explore why good intentions can sometimes lead to judgment, policing, or division, and why building a thriving profession requires something much more powerful: trust, accountability, and genuine support for one another. If you've ever felt frustrated by conflict within the industry or wondered how to navigate disagreements with integrity, this conversation offers a thoughtful roadmap for creating a stronger community together.

👂 What to Listen For

  • Why good intentions can sometimes turn into judgment, policing, and division within the intimacy community 
  • How to offer feedback that builds trust instead of damaging professional relationships 
  • Why context matters before making assumptions about another intimacy professional's work 
  • The difference between accountability, mentorship, and trying to control someone else's career 
  • How creating a culture of generosity and collaboration strengthens the future of the entire profession 

🔗 Important Links

Why Community Matters in Intimacy Work

SPEAKER_00

Welcome everybody to the IDC podcast where intimacy professionals come together to keep their finger on the pulse of what is happening inside the industry. My name is Jessica Steinrock. I am the CEO here at Intimacy Directors and Coordinators and one of your co-hosts today. And I also use she, her pronouns.

SPEAKER_01

I am Marie Percy. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the chief creative officer here at IDC. And I am, I'm excited to get into this topic, y'all. This is something I've been wanting to talk about for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's an important conversation, right? Okay, so today we're gonna be drilling down deep, and Marie and I are gonna have a frank and honest conversation about some of the social trends that we've been noticing inside the intimacy professional community. You know, as this community has grown over the last 10 years and we've seen a huge influx of incredible intimacy professionals, voices, opinions, all of those things, we've also noticed emerging social trends and how intimacy professionals relate to one another, what those relationships can look like, when they work to support each other, but also when we're seeing some relationship trends that might accidentally be working to tear each other down and wanting to build an intentional community and intentionality around how these social trends are affecting what it means to be an intimacy professional today.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I think, you know, when I when I think about this being an emerging field, I think so many of these trends have come from a place of many people trying to work together toward a common cause, but ultimately coming from different contexts and different perspectives. And so there have been so many beautiful ways in which a plethora of contexts and perspectives have made the work richer and better, but also through different perspectives, we have seen a lot of conflict and difficulty inside the community. And so I want to just talk about that really directly and how we as a community can move through conflict and how we can work together to support each other and ultimately trust that other intimacy professionals, no matter what organization they've trained with or their particular approach, that we are all on the same team trying to make our industry a better place. And I think we are uniquely suited to sort of notice and name these trends for a couple of reasons. One, as people who run a company where we are training intimacy professionals all the time, both myself and Jessica, are constantly working with hundreds of our participants in one-on-one onboarding meetings, mentorships, workshops, live skill building sessions, right? These are times where we are working with people who are actively trying to enter the field or who are currently working in the field but looking for additional support.

When Good Intentions Create Division

SPEAKER_01

And in those times, we are hearing stories. We are hearing what's happening behind the scenes. We are honestly, we get a lot of like the scoop of the drama of what is happening. And I think a skill we have both had to develop is the ability to not get dragged into the drama, but actually to just like stay grounded and listen and be respectful and find ways to set really clear, professional, healthy boundaries so that we can listen and observe and discern what's going on and be the best support we can for our students. But I also think there's a lot of wisdom to be gained from that that we can share with the larger community in the podcast based on just what we're hearing and the trends that we're noticing.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, who would have thought an industry based in drama would also have some drama? You know, and I joke, but you know, I don't always love the term drama as I think it can be really trivializing to people's real experiences that can be really quite challenging and activating buttons get pushed, triggers get triggered, all of those things. And also sometimes it it, you know, I I've experienced kind of this like a fluttery experience of uh frantic energy that can really be ungrounding and disconcerting inside the intimacy coordinator uh community, intimacy director community. And and sometimes, as I kind of said in the beginning, I think that that, while maybe the goal is intentionally originally to support to improve, can ultimately create distrust, foster resentment, break down collaboration and communication, and is ultimately not helping us as an industry push forward to the goals that many of us share.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And so, like foundationally, I believe that we have to trust each other to do excellent work. Right? If if I am looking at every other intimacy professional out there and thinking, well, my work is better, or they're not doing it this way, and I am having judgmental thoughts and being judgmental of other approaches and other perspectives within this work, then that's not constructive. What we need to be doing is finding ways to support each other and to truly be listening and using our all our active listening skills when we encounter someone in the intimacy professional community who has a different approach, has a different opinion, who we maybe have a disagreement with, that we have to be listening to each other and supporting each other and trusting that where that other person is coming from is a place of desiring to do good. You know, some of the trends we're noticing, it might kind of sting to hear. It might be a little confronting to, and or you might be like, yeah, somebody did that to me, or I experienced that. And so I just, as you're listening to this episode, would encourage you to like take care of yourself, take a moment to breathe. If something feels really confrontational or or brings up something unpleasant that you've experienced, you know, just to please take care of yourself. Because I don't think any of the conflict that I sometimes see arise comes from a malicious place. I don't think there are intimacy coordinators or directors out there who are actively trying to tear each other down. But I do see people acting from a place of really deeply caring about the safety of actors and the survival of the profession.

The Danger of Black and White Thinking

SPEAKER_01

And what that turns into is actually policing each other's behavior or fighting over some sort of spotlight or attacking each other over from a place of moral righteousness, right? So, so I've often observed intimacy professionals coming from this place of like, this is the right thing to do. This is what is so important. And if you're not doing this, you are then bad. And there's a lot of black and white thinking that starts to happen that creates division among us rather than bringing us together. Have you observed this, Jessica?

SPEAKER_00

Of course I have. And I mean, you know, I've I've certainly been a perpetrator of it myself, right? This idea that like I spend so much time studying, researching, practicing, figuring out what works and what doesn't. And especially when, you know, in my experience, XYZ doesn't work and I see someone out there doing XYZ, it can be really frustrating or really challenging because, from my perspective, XYZ is potentially causing more harm. And the whole reason I entered into this career is because uh of wanting to be from work from a space of harm reduction. And so that has often, you know, uh clouded how I perceive others, how I perceive differences of opinions. So often I think I've I've approached this work from a stance where, you know, there's it's a binary of either it's causing harm or preventing harm. And that if it's not doing one, it's doing the other. And as we uh know, those black and white thinking is almost never actually the reality of what's actually happening. And so there's been a lot of unlearning and re-examining of my own practices and how I interact in those spaces and how I see other people interact in those spaces, that that there is a lot more gray area than I think any of us really want to admit or feels comfortable to reconcile with.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, I think I think that's such a a profound thing to think about, of the amount of discomfort it takes to sit with something living in a gray space or a non-binary space that, you know,

Why Every Intimacy Coordinator Works Differently

SPEAKER_01

context is the first pillar. It's, I think, the most one of the most important pieces of intimacy work. And everything that everybody is doing, every choice an intimacy director or coordinator is making is informed by the context that they are inside. It is informed by the information they have, it's informed by the collaborators they're working with, it's informed by the needs of the show, the conversations they've had with actors. And so if you hear an intimacy director or coordinator who's saying, Yeah, I decided we weren't gonna have a strictly closed set. We were gonna let an extra person on for this other person's comfort, right? Like you hear something where somebody's bending the rules or they're not following the protocols directly the way you think they should be doing. Oftentimes it's because we actually don't have the full context of the situation and why that decision was made in the first place. And my practice, and I suspect many other people's practices are built upon our layered experiences, right? So you do some learning, you get some training, you get some rules, some knowledge, and then you go road test it in the real world, right? And the real world is very different than a training environment. And there's a lot of like creative problem solving that has to happen as you're working through it. And you are the one who's like uniquely in that moment, making those judgment calls. And that's ultimately what we're doing as intimacy directors and coordinators. We're making judgment calls based on a body of knowledge we have and a body of experience. And, you know, if you have worked with a particular population for a long time, your judge, your like intuition and judgment calls are gonna be very different than someone else who's worked with a different population. So, for example, I have worked in a ton of university settings and I have a ton of experience working with college-age students on consent and intimacy and intimacy direction. And so when I sit down with Claire Warden on our team to talk through, okay, what are we teaching? How are we codifying these protocols? I'm like, well, I do this and this works really well. And she's like, I would never do that in a million years. That's terrible. Right. And so we have to reconcile with this idea that I am working in a particular context, she is working in a different context. And so the expression of the principles of the work looks very different. And until you are walking in that person's shoes, you don't know why they have come to the conclusions they've come to or why something is working for them in a particular way. And that's also part of why our program is so like principles-based, as we try to teach those principles. So people are building the ability to make those judgment calls based on an intuitive body of knowledge. Yeah, it's complicated. It's complicated.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and

Why We Feel the Need to Police Each Other

SPEAKER_00

why do you think this happens? Like, why do you think we get into these like cycles and loops and patterns? Oh, you know, I think there's a lot.

SPEAKER_01

I think there's a lot about it. I think, I think early on, there was a lot of fear about the existence of this work to begin with. And it was like, it was like, sure, oh my gosh, if somebody gets a role as an intimacy coordinator on a major set and they mess it up, nobody at that network, that network is never gonna hire anybody ever again, right? It was like they only had that one experience and it was a bad experience, and now no one's gonna get hired by that director ever again. And so there was all this fear about like, no, we have to make sure that the people who are doing the work are doing it at a certain level so that our job can continue to exist.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and I think I've definitely experienced that myself, where you know, I would talk to someone and they would say, Oh, I don't like intimacy coordination because I had this one experience with somebody, which is so different than when someone has a bad experience with, say, a stunt coordinator, or even, you know, an actor has a bad experience with a director. It's not that directing shouldn't exist or that stunt coordination shouldn't exist. They go, Oh, yeah, I had a bad experience with that person as a stunt coordinator. I need to find a different stunt coordinator. But early on, I I that's not the conversation that I was having with people. It was a lot of, you know, I had a bad experience with an intimacy coordinator, therefore I don't like intimacy coordination. Right. They're all bad now. Right. So I I I understand like where that came from uh and where those lived experiences came from, and where kind of this like um desire to make sure that, especially in the early days, it felt really precarious for what uh what intimacy coordination could possibly become.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I think the really good news is I think we're past that. I think we've moved past that like the profession exists, we're gonna, people are gonna keep needing us. We've established that this role is critical, you know. And so I think now we're in a situation where if there's someone out there who is doing a bad job from your perspective, you don't truly know the results they're getting, but you maybe you've heard or you believe they're doing a bad job. Assumptions, right? But that ultimately how how well you support a production will you will have natural consequences inside the industry, right? Those natural consequences are now going to fall on you as the intimacy director or coordinator, not on the entire profession. So if I show up and I have a call with an actor and all of a sudden I'm blabbing the actor's secrets all over the place, guess what? I'm gonna be the one who gets fired and doesn't get hired again, right? Talk about a matrix. I don't need another intimacy coordinator to be like, you're being a bad person, Marie, for not following the rules. Like, I'm just gonna get fired. There's gonna be sort of a natural attrition. And I honestly think we've seen some of that happen in the field where there has been sort of a little bit of a natural culling where people who were doing a lot of work early on maybe aren't doing as much work. And, you know, the quality of the support you provide for a production ultimately is gonna determine how many times you get called back and what additional gigs come from that, from that opportunity. So we don't need to be policing each other when it comes to that. I think the industry, like things are gonna shake out on their own.

SPEAKER_00

Which is

Accountability vs. Control

SPEAKER_00

how all the other, you know, professions kind of operate as well, right? That they're this is one of the beautiful things about intimacy being a standardized piece of creation now is that it gets to be treated in so many other ways, like the other roles. I got to teach a class last night to a group of directors, uh, which was really amazing. And I, and this is a lecture and a class I've taught a couple times before. And so it's been interesting kind of to watch the reception of that lecture change. And in that lecture, I'd asked, you know, how many of you have heard of intimacy coordinators? The whole room, everyone raised their hand, right? They've all heard of this position before, which three years ago, that's not what that reception was. What was also so interesting is that in the past, when questions have been asked about, well, do I have to have an intimacy coordinator on this kind of thing, or can I wave this right? Or, you know, what if everybody says, oh no, we don't need one, da-da-da-da-da. In the past, I've had to really root into justification for why this role is so important and why you should want to have an intimacy coordinator and how this is the best practice. And this time I got to go, well, that's just the rules. Like you don't get to, you don't get to wave the crash pad in a high fall. You know, like you, that's just the safety rules and regulations. Uh, it's a, you know, that these are part of SAG After regulations, having intimacy coordinators, you know, best faith efforts by production, all of that is now codified in such a different way than it was even right five years ago. And that's made such a huge impact in the longevity and sustainability of this position as a whole.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Now I think there is an I want to circle back because I think there is another reason why I have witnessed intimacy directors and coordinators policing each other's behavior and trying to stop each other from taking gigs or trying to control other intimacy directors or coordinators' behavior. And I think it is because there is a large body of people who are drawn to this work who have experienced something traumatic or something negative themselves in the entertainment industry. And I think that kind of experience can sometimes result in a desire to have more control over a situation or other people's behavior, right? And so if you're like, I have been hurt as an actor in the entertainment industry, and I want to become an intimacy director so I can make sure that other actors aren't hurt the way I was. And then you see an intimacy director who's doing something that you believe is going to lead to more actors being hurt, you there's a genuine, like a natural consequence there where you're like, well, please don't do that. Because that's the we're trying not to do that, right? That's the goal. The goal is not to be hurting people. And so that desire to protect people can bloom beyond your own sphere of influence. And I've seen this happen to many really talented, amazing intimacy professionals. And it comes from the goodness of their heart, right? Like we truly have the best intentions, but it can turn into actually trying to control another intimacy professional's behavior. And that ultimately is not supportive for us in our community when we're trying to control each other. Because first of all, you can't. As a lifelong perfectionist control freak, I've just had to make peace with that. You cannot control other people's behavior. Although there's a lot of people out there that want to and try and try, right? But ultimately you've you really can't. And this role isn't about control. When I'm stepping into the room as an intimacy director, I'm not trying to control the situation. My goal is to create structures and facilitate a space where we can actually let go, where we can find more freedom in what we're doing. And so I would just, I would, if I would just encourage everyone listening to this episode to just spend some time reflecting on like what is your current sphere of influence? What are the things that are truly inside your control? And what are the things that are outside of your control and need to be someone else's responsibility?

SPEAKER_00

Well, and Marie, where do you see, you know, in this idea of controlling other people, the relationship between, you know, trying to control versus community accountability versus community support and feedback. You know, I don't, I, I don't think, I don't think what you're trying to say is that we should just let everybody do what everyone else wants to do and never, you know, look at what anyone else is ever doing, right? And just stay in your own lane and keep your head down. Uh, and also I agree that like I have seen a lot of of a desire to control how other people are, you know, doing their careers, their work. And that type of control is not conducive to the type of community that many of us kind of dream that intimacy professionals can be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. So very I want to be very clear. I am not saying that accountability isn't important. And I think we can absolutely part of supporting each other is helping to identify, helping people identify the things they cannot notice and are not aware of for themselves. Right. Like if if if I am, if I am going on blindly and I am, let's go with this terrible, horrible, obvious mistake I mentioned earlier, right? Like I'm having my actor calls and then I'm chatting all over the place about it, and I'm sharing personal information, which would be totally inappropriate, right? I I would not want a respected colleague to know that I was doing that and not say something to me, right? But there's a difference between Calling me in and asking me to be accountable for my behavior and trying to control what I'm doing. Right. So an example of trying to control would be like, you need to stop taking gigs and stop doing this work until you figure out how to do it right.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So like that, when we're trying to control someone's behavior, that that A doesn't teach them what they're doing wrong and it doesn't support them to do a better job in the future. And so I do think that community accountability and support is really important. And that if we

How to Give Feedback That Builds Trust

SPEAKER_01

see someone doing something that is unethical or dangerous or causing harm, that we do have the opportunity to offer them feedback. And I think being able to offer feedback is really important. But it has to be done in a way that builds trust between those two people rather than breaking it down. And at IDC, we do have an accountability process for any of our certified people. So if you ever see any of our certified people doing things that you would consider to be unethical or unsafe, we'd ask that you please, please report them to us so that we can follow up with them and help get them on the right path. Yeah. Do you know where that reporting link is, Jessica, in case anybody wants to find it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's all over our website. So it's at the footer. Just on the website. It's on the footer of every single page. It's also on our certified professional database. So there's always a form there if anybody is experiencing someone practicing unethically or against our professional and ethical agreements, which are also a set of agreements that all of our professionals sign when they become certified with us. And it dictates, you know, how we all agree to interact in the space, how we all agree to interact professionally, and what it means to IDC at least to be professionally and ethically associated with this organization and with that certification.

SPEAKER_01

So please let us know. But beyond that, let's, you know, if you have a colleague and you're like, I have some feedback. I heard something, word on the street is, or they've shared something with you that you're like, there's a better way to do that. That's unsafe, it's unethical, it's not working, right? I think the very first step in that is actually to ask their consent to give them feedback and to make sure that they are available to receive it. Because I don't know about you all, but if if say my two-year-old son was up all night and then I was working all day and it's six o'clock and I am exhausted, and someone's like, hey, Marie, you messed this up big time. I'm not gonna receive that very well in that moment, right? Like my I'm not as I'm not well resourced in that moment to receive it, to actually hear it, to integrate it, to make change to my practices, right? So actually entering a feedback conversation from a place of consent of like, hey, I've got some feedback for you. I'd love to be able to give it to you. Can I? Is there a good time for that? So that you're setting the stage and expectations of that conversation and that person can then prepare themselves to receive feedback, which can be so important and also just make all the difference in how that conversation goes, right? I think the second really important piece of this is to give the benefit of the doubt about the intentions of that person's behavior. If you go into that conversation assuming that they are the shark in the water who is secretly biting everybody's legs off, that is also not gonna be conducive for a really reception, for them to be receptive to what you have to share, right? Like, and so if you can go in, give them the benefit of the doubt, make sure you've got the facts straight about what you're gonna be sharing and be really clear about the scope of your knowledge. Don't go in and be like, well, everybody told me this, because who's everybody? That's not very specific, it's not useful, and it kind of just adds all this unnecessary pressure to the conversation. Now, this there's this invisible mob with pitchforks that are upset. Now I, as the receiver, am shutting down even more, right? So being clear about like where the feedback is coming from, where the information is coming from, and then delivering feedback that is actually actionable and non-judgmental, right? Like when you are talking to a colleague, your job is not to lecture them. Your job is to provide them with what you know, what you've heard, and then to share your recommendations and then to listen. If they answer questions, you know, they might be like, hey, you've only heard one side of the story. Actually, there's this other side of the story you haven't heard. And I was making these were my two terrible decisions that I had to make. Like I it was either gonna be awful sandwich A or disgusting sandwich B. And I went with awful sandwich A, and I hear that awful sandwich A was not great. Is there a C, is there a ham and cheese sandwich version that you have in mind? Like, you know, like you never know what was going on inside the situation, right? So delivering that feedback in a way that's non-judgmental and is sharing with them your ideas and recommendation in a way that's gonna be supportive, I think is just the best way that we can hold each other accountable in a way that is supportive, that's not trying to control other people or tear them down.

SPEAKER_00

Well, what I'm also hearing kind of inside this framework, too, is this idea of peer-to-peer mentorship, which is different than mentor-to-mentee feedback or teacher-to-student feedback, or, you know, any of those inherent power dynamic relationships. Like when we're looking at how we operate in the industry, there are lots of power dynamics as far as people who've been in the industry longer or shorter, or people who have, you know, established these amount of connections versus this amount of connections. And sometimes those power dynamics can also get in the way of this feedback. And so taking a step back to think, okay, how do I make this as a peer-to-peer recommendation and peer-to-peer support, which is different than saying, I'm going to teach you or I'm going to show you what the right way is, can really amplify some of those power dynamics that already exist inside of our industry.

Building the Future of the Intimacy Profession Together

SPEAKER_01

Here's the moral of the story, folks. Can we just all be nice to each other? Like offer each other kindness and support and call each other in, but do so in a way that builds trust and that doesn't label someone as bad or wrong. You know, I think if there was one moral of the story, it's the more we can avoid black and white thinking and come to each other as human beings who are all imperfect and all are all working towards a common goal, I think the better off we're all gonna be.

SPEAKER_00

Well, Ann Marie, what I'm also hearing you say, which is the thing I hate to do, is that chances are the call is coming from inside the house. And this is about me and my relationship to myself and why I get triggered when other people act are acting in a certain way, and why I, you know, my chest tightens, my energy or my blood surges when, you know, certain things happen. And now, again, there's a little bit of a difference between someone causing egregious unethical harm versus someone doing something in a way that I don't agree with or I think is not the best way, or right, some of those like other types of mistakes where there might actually be more than one right answer and creating space for that. But it all comes down to my relationship with my triggers, my my trauma, my challenges, so that when I can be grounded, that's then the place from which I can be kind, supportive, calling in, as opposed to controlling and calling out.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like if we could offer each other as intimacy professionals the same kind of care and grace that we offer to our collaborators, I think that would be a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's an exciting place to be in that we get to actively shape the culture of intimacy work as it continues to grow and expand and rapidly grow and expand over the last 10 years. And I am really excited to see what the next 10 years is gonna be as far as how our community continues to evolve and how we also might be able to model what that type of supportive feedback that doesn't police, tear down, control one another could actually look like.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. All right, well, if you stuck with us through this episode, kudos to you. We're probably preaching to the choir, but thank you all so much for listening. Make sure to like, subscribe, all of the things, and we'll see you back next time on the IDC podcast.