Laura Desiree
Laura Desiree
Occupation: Intimacy coordinator and adult performer
Location: New York City, United States
The Sex in My Business: Here in New York, we have some wonderfully radical theater, and I’m the intimacy coordinator for a monthly stage show produced by the sex club Snctm that includes simulated and real sex scenes. My job is to work with both the director and the actors to ensure that the scenes are being made ethically, that the director’s intentions are being carried out, and that those intentions are made safe for the performers. Since the dawn of organized performances, there’s always been someone calling the shots, and there’s always been tremendous pressure on the talent to simply follow orders, even if they are uncomfortable with them. As we say in the intimacy coordination business, “urgency is the death of agency.” It’s my responsibility to make sure no one is getting pressured or rushed into anything, and then to make sure everyone has great chemistry and feels confident going in.
I meet performers individually to get to know them, assess boundaries, and make sure they’re aware and comfortable with everything they’ll be doing. Even for professionals, there’s a lot of anticipation and nervous energy when it comes to sex. I work on the choreography, props, position changes, and what the crescendo might look like. For male performers in particular, there can be some anxiety over staying ready to rock, making it until the end, and delivering an explosive finale. Once you remove the stress and pressure, you permit a much freer show.
How I Got Here: I have a long history in live performance. I was a burlesque dancer for 15 years, and that was my entry point into erotic entertainment. I was also a cabaret performer. I was a producer and one of the presenters for a show called Naked News (1999–), where female anchors report the news while fully nude. I became absolutely fascinated and obsessed with the erotic force inside us. I started doing more stage shows that focused on sensuality, then sexuality, and then sexual shock content — which is why Bruce LaBruce and I get along so well! Honestly much of what is labeled “shock content” says more about where our (over)sensitivities are as a society than anything about the content itself.
I ended up becoming the creative director for a night club in Toronto called Candyland, and I soon had the owner barking in my ear saying “I want to get in trouble for the shows you do!” While that might sound like creative freedom, it’s actually very dangerous language. Wanting to produce maximally shocking content for its own sake, just to draw crowds in? That can be a big problem for performers.
Intimacy coordination didn’t formally exist back then, but basically I was already doing the job out of necessity. Then the pandemic hit, everything went online, and I became an adult content creator. It's something I really love doing and continue with today. I’ve been an activist for the rights and dignity of sex workers for as long as I’ve been taking my clothes off publicly, including a YouTube series I produced called Red Umbrella Talk. I’ve been fighting for better working conditions and better standards around consent for so long, and essentially doing the job of intimacy coordination in all but name, so I decided it was time to get the paperwork done, get formally trained and certified, and make it official.
A Typical Day: My days involve a lot of communication with the director, and a lot of time spent with the performers. Snctm’s shows are meant to be intensely voyeuristic. They have no dialogue and no scripts, but they do have themes, such as, for example, an extraterrestrial/outer space motif we did some months back. So I’m working with the cast and crew to pin down the choreography, to rehearse, and to integrate all the moving parts. In practice, this means lots of meetings, both in-person and via Zoom, as well as email. I’m basically working with people all day through every medium of communication.
The Best Part: When everything clicks, and you’re witnessing these performers at their best, in a complete state of ease and joy, it’s breathtaking. I get to watch people perform incredibly wonderful, artistic, hot sex scenes, and who doesn’t like to watch that? I love watching the cast at the end of a show after they've given the performance of their lives. They leave the stage feeling liberated, radiating a euphoric glow, and feeling powerful and sexy from what they've just accomplished.
The Worst Part: The worst part is when you encounter a mismatch, and someone discovers in the process of working that there’s a trauma from their past that’s flaring up, or a boundary they didn’t know they had is being crossed. Obviously, when this happens, it’s not responsible to continue, and you have to do what is necessary to address people’s human needs. Consent is revocable anytime during production. For a performer to have to say goodbye to a production is not something I’ve personally seen, but I’ve heard about it from colleagues, and it’s definitely saddening.
What Society Thinks: Sex is an increasingly fraught subject these days. I was at the gym the other day, and I saw a headline on TV that read “Hollywood to plan a future with fewer sex scenes”, and I thought this can’t be the answer. I think a lot of society is cheering intimacy coordinators on, but I feel enormous resistance from within the film, stage, and porn industries. If you google “intimacy coordinator”, there is so much negativity, and so many directors or actors — Michael Douglas comes to mind — who say that we don’t belong on sets, or we shouldn’t be mandatory. They seem to regard productions, including sex scenes, as a road they’d like to race down as quickly as possible and regard intimacy coordinators as if we were speed bumps or something. I think it’s a shame, and it misses the point of our profession entirely. My job isn’t to override the director, it’s to come up with solutions and suggestions that maintain the intensity of the scenes, address the issues that will invariably arise on set, and make sure everyone leaves happy. Oftentimes, these are issues that directors simply aren’t equipped to handle.
When I’m Not at Work: I love going to the movies. In New York City, there are such amazing repertory (“rep”) cinemas, such as Metrograph, which programs the most insanely fabulous eclectic films. I also love live events, especially stand-up comedy. I love art that straddles the line of what we’re comfortable with. I think that’s the purpose of art, and I try to expose myself to it as much as possible. And of course, I watch a lot of Bruce LaBruce films!
Published in Issue XII: Cinema