‘Coordinating’ Consent in Contemporary Content Creation: the use of ‘intimacy coordinators’ in pornography

The use of intimacy coordinators in mainstream TV content has received increased societal and academic attention in the wake of ‘me too’, where the use of intimacy coordinators, promoting equality and diversity, have been used to counter ‘harassment and abuse in the post-Weinstein era’ (Sprensen 2020). Intimacy coordinators are used in mainstream television and film production to map out sex scene boundaries to ensure ‘informed consent’ (Villarreal 2022). This paper moves beyond the mainstream in discussing findings from a research project on the use of intimacy coordinators in the production of pornography. Sullivan and Mckee (2015) have highlighted similarities between pornography and other creative industries such as film and television, where ‘performers experience a lack of job security, short periods of intense and physically demanding work and a lack of creative control’. This paper situates research findings in existing debates on consent and adult performers occupational health and safety rights (see Sullivan and McKee 2015, Karley-Lynn Scott 2015 and Rothman 2021). Whilst acknowledging the exploitive nature of some pornography and performers' experiences, this research instead focusses on production that is entered into consensually; it is the nature of that consent and the ways in which it is negotiated that are central to this paper. The precarious nature of pornography production and associated stigma performers encounter exacerbates the risks they face and the limited ‘recourse when they are mistreated’ (Sullivan and McKee 2015). The paper contributes to wider debates concerning so called ethical or feminist pornography; such pornography is said to be ‘ethically produced’ in terms of production processes, safety and representation of consent (Liberman 2015).