I co-created and performed in a show at the Rising arts festival in Melbourne this year about sex work and dance as performance-based labour, and after one of our performances I took part in a Q&A session with the other creator and the director. The moderator asked me about if I had felt “safe” collaborating with others on such personal topics; I responded that safety hadn’t even crossed my mind in this workplace and compared to the dangers I encounter in my usual workplace. The question felt laughable. Here I was, working closely with two friends, with a contract, a hierarchy, chains of command and HR. Usually, I work in a private room, alone with a man who I have never met before, who is physically stronger than me and possibly has no regard at all for my personhood or profession, even though he’s paying me. What risk was there in making this show compared to the risk I have taken thousands of times over 12 years?
I understood and respected Mikey Madison’s decision not to have an intimacy coordinator in Anora (2024). She said “my character is a sex worker…it’s how she makes a living, and it’s just what she has to do… as an actress, I approached it in a way of being a job”. She clearly appreciated that having fewer people on set brought her closer to the reality of navigating intimacy as a sex worker, with sex as just one aspect of her daily life, with no greater emphasis placed upon it. The backlash against her was confusing and reeked of moral panic, as if sex is the only site of potential violence or trauma.
I don’t discount that it can be helpful for an actor to have someone act as their liaison or advocate with the rest of the crew, but I can’t see why you would have them only for sexual/nude scenes—as if they are innately different to any other scene, and as if there aren’t other ways to protect performers. For example, in The Handmaiden (2016), they had an all-female crew (besides the director) on the days they shot the lesbian sex scenes. People also act as if intimacy coordinators are themselves infallible, and as if they inevitably improve the shooting of the scene. An actress friend of mine said to me recently that having an intimacy coordinator in one instance made her work more difficult as she had to navigate her relationship with them on top of the rest of the crew. The most sensible comment I’ve seen in this discussion was from Florence Pugh, who said, “I’ve had good ones and bad ones… [they] are a job that’s still figuring itself out.”
All of this made me reflect on what is deemed an acceptable risk in the workplace, and how relative it is. Some actors might consider a stressful or even slightly traumatic work environment as worth it for the end product, to have art they are proud of; for example, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos both defended their involvement in Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013) in spite of accusations against the director of harassment and unfair work conditions. Exarchopoulos said “for me, a shoot is a human adventure, and in every adventure you have some conflict”; Seydoux said, “I’m still very happy with this film… it was extremely hard but that’s okay… I like to be tested. Life is much harder…”. We can’t ask Heath Ledger if his Oscar-winning performance in The Dark Knight (2008) was worth the effect on his mental health and sleep, but Clark Gable considered The Misfits (1961) his best performance, even though his insistence on doing his own stunts possibly contributed to his death of a heart attack 12 days after it wrapped.
In sports like rugby and American football, too, we are gradually finding out the real risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy—but perhaps condemning young men to neurodegenerative disease is seen by some as worth it, both for our entertainment and the financial reimbursement the players receive. And maybe they themselves see it as worth the risk!
I always work sober, to mitigate risk and minimise opportunities to misread boundaries and cues, but also to protect myself, as I think I can best intuit and respond to clients with a clear mind. Recently, a couple contacted me for a party booking; they wanted four girls for an orgy, all to participate in kinky sex with some power play. I said that while I could accommodate the request for group sex and BDSM, I wouldn’t partake in the drug-taking—as a paid professional, I should remain sober so there was no confusion regarding consent while the various multi-person acts unfolded. The addition of drugs, to me, was not an acceptable risk, though to other escorts it may have been. A risk that is astounding and hazardous to one person is worthwhile to another. Who are we to condemn other’s choices, to act as if there is always an objectively correct answer?
