It is now a without question that the film, television and theatre industries have a serious problem with sex.

As the list of harassment allegations and known abusers grows ever longer day by day, a group of British theatre practitioners has called for compulsory “intimacy directors” – dedicated staff to prevent actors from being exploited during sex scenes on stage and screen.

Ita O’Brien, a movement director, and her agents at Carey Dodd Associates have drawn up a set of guidelines to protect actors from the moment they audition through rehearsals to being on set.

They include banning nudity and simulated sex in auditions, ensuring any sexual content is explicitly stated in the contract and working on closed or small sets when sex scenes are being filmed.

Even small things like having dressing gowns on hand can make the difference, she says.

Left vulnerable

“There is an assumption that people don’t know how to fight with swords, so you get somebody in to teach them, and people assume you don’t know how to do a foxtrot, so you get a choreographer in,” O’Brien told The Stage. “But the thing with sexual contact and sexual expression is the idea that everybody knows how to do it so we don’t have to take care.

“Invariably whenever there isn’t transparency, whenever everybody isn’t in agreement and knows what’s going on, that’s when actors are left vulnerable.”

Or more vulnerable, she should have said. Pick any interview with a young star who is promoting a movie with notable sex scenes in it and they will at some point talk about the experience. For every one who says that the shooting was done sensitively, there will be someone else who was embarrassed, uncertain, simply told to get on with it.

Like the young stars of the Palme d’Or-winning film Blue is the Warmest Colour, Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos, who were 28 and 19 years old when they made it.

They later said the experience was “horrible”, they felt “humiliated” and “like prostitutes” and were forced by the director Abdellatif Kechiche into filming one sex scene for 10 days in a row. He went on to win several awards.

Strong policy

Anything that protects actors – particularly, though not only, young, inexperienced actors – is a good thing. Solid guidelines will help; indeed, they could go further – stipulating a certain quota of females in the crew and on set, for example.

Still, it is notable that is has taken a global crisis in the entertainment industry for it to sit up and think about its working methods.

Earlier this month the Royal Court Theatre published a Code of Behaviour to prevent sexual harassment and abuses of power. These guidelines should already be common practice; a rehearsal room or film set should already be a suitable working environment without having to hire someone to police it.

It’s the job of the director – not a hired intimacy expert – to make sure his or her cast feels safe at work in the first place.

Twitter: @alicevjones