When intimacy coordinator Adelaide Waldrop gets asked about her job at parties, she contemplates lying. “I’ve considered saying I’m an accountant,” she says. When she reveals the truth, the response is almost always seedy. There are questions about erections, merkins, and inappropriate celebrities. “Or it’s a lot of, ‘Oh we could use one of you at home with me and the missus’, and questions about my sex life,” Waldrop adds. “We’re a hot button topic.”

Lately, the heat has been on high. To some, intimacy coordinators are an auspicious part of a post-#MeToo industry, one that protects cast and crew while providing crucial creative input – Michelle Williams, Alexander Skarsgård, and Emma Stone are among those to have gushed about their experiences. To others, they’re the sex police, impeding artistry for the sake of avoiding an HR headache. Mikey Madison didn’t want an intimacy coordinator for her Oscar-winning sex worker film Anora. Gwyneth Paltrow asked hers to “step back a little bit” while making Marty Supreme. Jennifer Lawrence couldn’t even remember if she had one while filming Die My Love (she did), but said it wouldn’t have been necessary because her co-star, Robert Pattinson, “is not pervy”.

Despite the response to these remarks (former Channel 4 drama chief Caroline Hollick called Paltrow’s comments “irresponsible”), they’ve contributed to a negative narrative around intimacy coordination. Part of the problem is that, in the words of Florence Pugh, intimacy coordination is “still figuring itself out”. While some versions of this work have existed for decades – sex educator Susie Bright was brought in to choreograph intimate scenes in the 1996 film Bound – it didn’t become an industry mainstay until after #MeToo. Now, intimacy coordinators are unionised in the US with Sag-Aftra and the UK has its own registry for intimacy coordinators under Bectu. Requirements include extensive training and paid credits on at least five productions.

“There was a lot of demand very quickly for this role that outstripped the ability of people who had just started to figure out what it was to appropriately train people to do it well,” says Waldrop, whose credits include Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Mickey 17. “We’re not just there to whisper in the actors’ ears between takes. And I do feel like some people get into this job because they think you get to be the confidante to famous movie stars and become someone who’s praised for changing the industry for the better. But I don’t think having a big public profile as an IC is helpful. My role already gets a lot of unwanted attention, and it can be a distraction to the work.”

The role of an intimacy coordinator varies depending on the project. In most cases, they begin by breaking down intimate scenes in the script and having confidential discussions with the relevant crew and actors to put a clear plan in place ahead of shooting. This might include sharing instances of sexual trauma, or anything that they feel might affect the way they approach intimate scenes. “Everything takes a bit longer, but that’s no bad thing,” says one male actor who has done sex scenes with and without an intimacy coordinator. “You never really know what actors have been through; we’ve all got pasts. So having that conversation, where no questions are asked, is really important.”

This is the case even when the conversations are lighter. “It can just be as simple as someone hating a part of their body and not wanting it to be seen on camera,” says Robbie Taylor Hunt, an intimacy coordinator who specialises in queer content, with credits including Heartstopper and Pillion, Harry Lighton’s Bifa award-winning debut about a BDSM biker community. “I was brought on really early,” says Taylor Hunt. “Whenever you’re working on anything outside mainstream perceptions, there’s a pressure to do it justice so it doesn’t fall into tropes. But with Pillion, it felt straightforward because there was such buy-in from everyone that it was never a battle.”

In addition to choreographing scenes, an intimacy coordinator’s responsibilities typically include conducting risk assessments, overseeing closed sets, and providing modesty garments and barriers (ideally at least three for simulated penetration). “We’re not mental health professionals,” adds Waldrop. “But we are there to help foster an environment of transparency and ongoing, informed consent for everyone.” Having an intimacy coordinator spares female crew members from being roped in to provide emotional support to actors during sex scenes, as was common in pre-intimacy coordinator days. “A friend told me she was on a job where a young actress’s character was having sex for the first time, so the male director got loads of female crew in the room and asked them to talk about their first experiences of sex, one by one, as a way of helping the actress feel more comfortable,” says Taylor Hunt.

Of course, there have been more serious incidents, too, with infamous examples of real sex on screen (“an assault on the crew as much as anyone else,” says Waldrop), and instances of assault; Maria Schneider famously said she felt “a little raped” by Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci while filming Last Tango in Paris’s butter scene.

For intimacy coordinators, it’s frustrating to see their profession being reduced to clickbait. “It feels super minimising,” says Tommy Ross-Williams, whose credits include Sweetpea and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. “I’m a trans IC; I’m basically the beginning of a joke,” they say. “I think it’s the fear we have around people talking about bodies and sex more generally. If people want less nuanced intimacy on screen, then get rid of intimacy coordinators. But since ICs came along, I think people have been braver about telling intimate stories with nuance and complexity.”

In terms of what happens next, intimacy coordinators are hoping that the fascination trails off; it’s hard to do a job that keeps making headlines just for existing. “I know I’ve done a good job on a set when nobody notices me at all,” says Waldrop. “Because everything’s been done in advance, so everyone knows what they’re doing in a scene, and all I do is step back and let it happen.”