Normal People's intimacy co-ordinator explains rules for shooting sex scenes

Hit BBC series was praised and criticised for its explicit sexual content

The intimacy co-ordinator who worked on the sexually explicit BBC series Normal People has broken down how the show’s sex scenes were filmed.

Speaking on Brendan O’Connor's Radio 1 RTE show, Ita O’Brien said: “If you’re doing an intimate scene, the fundamental rule is never ever should their genitalia touch.

“You’ll have the actress wearing a modesty patch and the gentleman wearing a modesty pouch,” she continued. ”What we have in place is the actors are empowered and they have the autonomy to halt the action when filming an intimate scene.

“The actor will have a safe word to halt the action and share it with the crew, and if anything happens through the take that isn’t comfortable or they need to take a break they need to call out to halt the action themselves.”

Intimacy co-ordinators are now commonplace on TV and film shoots where nudity or sexual content is involved. The co-ordinators work to ensure the dignity and agency of the actors involved.

Normal People has attracted plenty of attention for its sexual content, with the series’s stars stepping out to defend it after some more conservative viewers accused the sex scenes of being “immoral”.

The BBC series, which is an adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name by Sally Rooney, has proved a huge hit with audiences, becoming the biggest iPlayer debut in BBC3’s history.