Exclusive Interview
How ‘I Want Your Sex’s Intimacy Coordinator Tackled the Millennial & Gen Z Intimacy Divide
What To Know
- I Want Your Sex, directed by Gregg Araki, stars Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde.
- The film explores generational divides in intimacy between Millennials and Gen Z, set against the backdrop of a digital, socially disconnected age.
- The film’s intimacy coordinator, Yehuda Duenyas, spoke with Swooon about collaborating closely with the director and cast to ensure nuanced, safe, and realistic depictions of intimacy, the growing significance of intimacy coordinators in film, and more.
I Want Your Sex is writer-director Gregg Araki‘s first feature film in 12 years. The Mysterious Skin creator has lent his talents to TV shows such as Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story in the time since 2014’s White Bird in a Blizzard, his last film release. His cinematic return stars Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman in a story that, unlike other shows and movies that have tried and failed in recent years, delivers a nuanced dialogue on the generational differences between Millennials, Gen Z, their relationships to sex, and the social media-driven age of loneliness in which we find ourselves.
I Want Your Sex, written by Araki and Karley Sciortino, was released in theaters on July 31. In it, an early 20-something man, Elliot (Hoffman), finds his wildest fantasies come true when he lands a job with a renowned artist, Erika Tracy (Wilde), who taps him to become her sexual muse. But he soon finds himself out of his depth as she takes him on a journey filled with sex, obsession, power, betrayal, and murder.
A standout scene from the film (below) takes place in Erika’s luxurious home when the artist and her muse talk about Gen Z’s resistance to having sex and making messes of their lives. Instead of the elder Millennial telling the Gen Z-er that his entire generation is wrong, Araki’s script has Elliot explain how being raised in the digital age impacted his generation’s relationship to intimacy. In response, Erika says risky behavior, within the reasonable confines of safety and consent, is an important part of being human. I Want Your Sex simultaneously argues that protecting yourself from any conflict or discomfort is not the sign of an evolved mind and that even when you’re open to messing up, meaningful protections and resolutions still need to exist. Erika and Elliot represent what the first two generations raised in the digital age can learn from each other about human connection.
Erika and Elliot’s dom-sub relationship begins at the workplace and dominates Elliot’s personal life, much to both of their delights. Sex scenes happen in the reality of the film and in the hyper-reality of Elliot’s sexual fantasies. The euphoric pleasure he gets out of them are contrasted by the loveless relationship full of rare, meaningless sex with his girlfriend, Minerva (played by pop star Charli XCX).
Wilde delivers one of her career-best performances as the dominating boss who teaches Elliot about the process of consent in kink before they really dive in. She gets clear consent when their sexual dynamic is beginning, but she irresponsibly blurs the lines of consent once they’re fully in their respective roles, using her power position as the dominant as her justification. At one climactic moment in the film, she violates consent altogether by sharing explicit footage in the name of “art.” Cooper’s character has much more black-and-white views of consent, but comes to his own conclusion that he does enjoy the things he’s urged to try that weren’t discussed in advance, although that has its limits.
I Want Your Sex was a dream job for intimacy coordinator Yehuda Duenyas not only because of the sheer volume of sex scenes, but also the nuance within them. Intimacy coordination isn’t just about sex scenes; if you see a “naked” person on-screen these days, that was likely arranged by someone in Duenyas’ role. It’s stunt coordination for sexy, tender, and intimate moments, removing the onus of choreographing these scenes from the actors who never should have had to stage them themselves.
Duenyas met Araki when they worked together on Dahmer, when he was Araki’s first intimacy coordinator, he tells Swooon. They also worked together on American Gigolo.
“When we first met, he’s like, ‘Intimacy coordinator, what’s that? Never worked with one of you before!'” Duenyas tells us. “I’m like, ‘Listen, Gregg, I’m a huge fan of your work, and you’ve made so many beautiful films and have tackled intimacy in such a beautiful, humanistic, complicated way.'”
Yehuda Duenyas, Gregg Araki, Cooper Hoffman, and Chase Sui Wonders attend the I Want Your Sex New York Premiere (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)
All of those descriptors are present in I Want Your Sex, a movie that asks viewers to take risks that will open up their minds to the expansiveness of the human experience to which intimacy is, in whatever shape or form, inextricably linked for all of us. Duenyas gives Swooon an in-depth look into how they did it in the interview below.
When you get a script like this, when the sex scenes are plot and really important to character development, what is your first step when working with the actors?
Yehuda Duenyas: Really the first step is to have a great conversation with the director. The first step, for intimacy coordination across the board, is that we’ll get a script, read it, and pull out every scene that we think needs some kind of conversation or mentioning. Then we’ll have a call with the director. In this particular case, I had worked with Gregg before. We had known each other for a few years, and we were able to get together and have a really deep dive into the script and what he’s looking for and wants. That’s a really special moment in the process to just really understand what the director’s vision is and talk about anything and everything in terms of how they see this all unfolding, what they want to see on-screen.
From there, we start having conversations with the actors. We’ll say, “You’ve read this script, this is the creative ask. How are you all feeling about this?” There’s usually a lot of questions about how we’re going to execute things. There’s lots of protocols that we put into place in terms of safety and technical things that we can get into. But it really starts with a creative conversation that moves into a further creative conversation in terms of actors and their boundaries.
Lacey Terrell / Elevation Pictures / Everett Collection
For Gregg, what were the key emotionally important things for these sex scenes?
Duenyas: He’s such an artist. There’s a hyper-reality to what he does, but he’s really into what these characters are actually going through. He wanted to find truth within his style and vision…. He also wants everyone to be comfortable, and he really wants everyone to just be able to go for it. Him and his whole life and career, he’s just went for it. He’s created some very seminal, intimate scenes over the years in all of his films, ones that I grew up on, too…. He wants dimension, beauty, truth, poetry, and raw visceralness. Everything that you saw in the film is what he was really after. It’s amazing working with different directors and hearing how they approach their material, how they see the stories they’re telling. It was really special to be able to get to have that conversation with him.
One thing that I find really interesting about this plot is the generational differences in terms of their perspectives on sex. A lot of TV shows and movies have things to say about this topic that don’t feel real in execution. It’s like one generation is misunderstanding the other, and no one’s quite writing it in a way that feels accurate to real life. But this movie, I think, really nails something realistic, which I thought was impressive and refreshing and very needed. This could be a really interesting conversation that no one’s doing right. But I think I Want Your Sex gets the nuance. As the intimacy coordinator, what kind of conversations did you have with Gregg and the cast in regards to this topic?
Duenyas: It’s interesting. A lot of those topics are conversations that happen between a director and the actors. That’s the story, that’s acting stuff. But Gregg and I did have a lot of conversations together about just that thing. I think a lot of people are citing this UCLA study on “Gen Z doesn’t want to see sex on-screen anymore” and “Gen Z is having less sex.” I don’t want to speak for a generation or for Gen Z, but my feeling is that everyone, culturally, is done with meaningless intimacy and meaningless sex or just gratuitous, seeing flesh for the sake of seeing flesh. We can open up our phones and see flesh if we want to. It’s not a premium. You don’t have to pay for cable to see flesh anymore. I’m dating myself with that statement, but that’s what it used to be. You paid for HBO and you saw steamy scenes or something like that. It’s everywhere. How do we now bring meaning to that?
Also, culturally, we’re so disconnected from one another. We’ve got this sort of Baudrillardian simulacra of intimacy and sex in terms of our images are so provocative and sexual, the way that we post things. But the way that we interact on a human-to-human level is now mediated in this very interesting way that I feel disconnects people. We’re all still humans at the end of the day. None of us are here without an act of intimacy having happened. No one reading this is on this earth without some intimacy, whether a good or bad experience or anywhere in between. It’s who we are. We’re human beings that are wired for intimacy. It’s how we navigate the world, and it’s how we enter the world and exit the world. There’s just so much about intimacy, so I think people really yearn for it.
There’s an epidemic of loneliness, and people are struggling for a connection. That’s a lot of what this film talks about. And so in speaking with Olivia and Cooper, they get it. They’re so on board with it. Cooper, from the younger generation side, was saying, “Oh my God, there are truths in this script.” And Olivia, from another side of that conversation, was also seeing that happening. And then Gregg, who is a well-established Gen X-er — and I’m Gen X as well — has also lived a completely different world than the world that exists now and how people are coming up now. There’s a lot inside of that.
What’s so interesting is that the struggle to connect and this deep desire for human intimacy is just so integral to who we are, and it’s always a topic of conversation. Those were the types of conversations that we had from a philosophical level. And then it’s like, OK, now how do we make this fun, cool, exciting, ridiculous, and all of the things that the film is? Chase [Sui Wonders] as well. All three of them had incredible commitment to their characters, to the role, to telling the story. They were all so funny. It was fun.
How much of that first sex montage between Erika and Elliot was scripted, and how much of it was you guys deciding how you can make a sex scene fun?
Duenyas: Gregg is so cool because he really relies on his department heads and collaborators. Arianne Phillips made the most incredible costumes and pulled all of these incredible toys and implements and costumes. That’s a whole level of ridiculousness and fun. We shot in this mansion in the Valley. We had this big playground where they’re like, “Oh, we’ve got this couch, we’ve got all this furniture that came in that’s all this set decoration and all this stuff.” A lot of it was written as well. It was like, “[Elliot] appears wearing a leash and a collar.” But then finding those exciting things to do in the moment, a lot of it was the actors. Some of it was Gregg, some of it was me.
It’s hard to even pull apart, but it was really a joyous collaboration in that way. And honestly, the actors bring so much to it. They’re the people on-screen. They’re the ones living inside of these characters, bringing these characters to life. And so much of it really came from what they wanted to do, how far they wanted to go, and how they wanted to push the boundaries. And then from there, we just dial in details. So, it’s hard to say where any one particular thing came from, but a lot of it was written. It was a really great collaboration with all of the departments really contributing so much to it.
Magnolia Pictures/Everett Collection
Going off of that, take me into the nitty-gritty of your position here. The beats of the sex scenes are written in the script, but how much are you choreographing? Or is it all figuring it out together with the cast and director?
Duenyas: There is definitely a good base layer of choreography inside of that, but it’s also a total conversation with everyone. And so I would just put that into a similar category of collaboration. The “Threesome Gone Wrong” scene, for example, there was a lot of beats to that. There’s three people. It starts in the living room, moves upstairs. There was a lot to figure out in terms of bodies and body positioning and where it’s happening. And so we spent some time on that, actually choreographing beats and where everything’s going to land. And then once that structure is set, the actors fill it in with all the fun stuff. And then I’ll say, “Oh, move your body in this way in this particular frame. It’s going to look good.” That type of thing.
The strap-on on the chest, that’s just the genius of Chase Sui Wonders. She came up with that in that moment, and it was hysterical. So, again, it’s kind of hard to parse out, but we definitely want to create good, as intimacy coordinators. It’s not just a free-for-all of improv. There’s beats, structures. We use barriers. We’ll put a half-deflated Pilates ball between the actors so they can grind on each other and not have to actually be grinding on each other. There’s all sorts of little tricks that we do to make it feel really real, but not actually have to be real. In the same way that someone’s falling off a building, they’re not just going to be in a scene or being thrown through glass; there’s going to be stunt glass and a pad.
Lacey Terrell/Magnolia Pictures/Everett Collection
Whenever I talk to intimacy coordinators or even just think about the job in general, it’s astounding to me that anyone could disagree that it’s a needed position on a set. It is just stunt coordination. It’s part of a scene. Why would you not have someone there to make it happen? And obviously, it’s a very intimate thing. It’s people’s bodies interacting with each other in a sexual way, so you’ve got to figure out how people are comfortable.
Duenyas: It’s interesting. I think about that particular thing that you said a lot, and I think it’s really important. Bringing it back to the stunts or fights parallel, a lot of us don’t know how to be in a bar fight and how things are swinging, glasses breaking, chairs are flying, fists are flying. We feel very intrinsically like we need someone to help do that. But intimacy is such a deep part of what it is to be human that everyone feels like they know how to be intimate on camera. A lot of times they do, but if you went to five people and asked them what intimacy is, you’re going to get five different answers. And if a director is like, “It’s not hot enough,” and you went to five different people and asked, “How would you make this particular thing hotter,” you’re also going to get five different answers. And so it’s an area of our lives that we feel like we know something about, or sometimes we feel like we don’t know anything about it.
A lot of people struggle with intimacy as well. [Intimacy coordinators] can get really clear about what is going to happen. What does hot mean? How is that going to look? Where can you be touched on your body with zero judgment? Fine, no problem. You don’t want to be touched there? All good. We’re going to stage it in a different way. That’s not a part of your body you want shown on camera? That’s fine, too. We’re going to stage it in a different way. I find that when a lot of people understand, Oh, wait, I actually have some agency in this, in the same way of you’re not really going to throw someone out of a window. I’m not actually going to be rubbing my naked body on top of someone, even though it’s going to look like that. There’s so much freedom that comes with that.
I’ve heard from every actor, “I just felt like I could relax and focus on the scene and not worry about my actual physical body. I just had to think about my character and who I am in this moment playing this role, not like what me, as myself who goes home and brushes my teeth at night, has to go through and how to protect myself while I’m also trying to play this role and fulfill this director’s vision and be at work, too.” We’re at work at the end of the day. It’s a strange work environment with different sets of boundaries than you might have in an office.
I’ve heard from so many actors that I’ve worked with, and just people on set, directors, costumes, hair, makeup, everyone, “I really don’t understand what we did before you. I don’t get it. Who did this before?” The role was just spread out among lots of people who are trying to figure it out. Now there’s a dedicated person who can handle that stuff, and it makes things so much faster, easier, saves so much time, money, feelings, lawsuits. It saves so much and makes the work better.
We’ve seen a boom of beautiful intimacy. I don’t have to say the two words Heated Rivalry again to anyone, but just think about, whether that’s your cup of tea or not, or whether you felt represented by that or not, what an incredible story of an intimate relationship that we don’t see a lot. We’re not privy to that. I’ve seen a real uptick in beautiful intimate scenes from Pillion to Heated Rivalry to, I don’t know, I could list 10 different things right now that are just like, oh, sh*t, intimacy is a character and people’s intimate lives are now really interesting. It’s not just this scene to sell a couple more tickets because we’re seeing some flesh on-screen. It’s about how we relate to one another. It’s beautiful.
Magnolia Pictures / Everett Collection
I completely agree. And it’s sensuality, which I feel has been very lost in the internet age because we’re so disconnected. How do we connect with people? You have to connect with yourself and lean into the sensuality of things. Touching on what you were saying before about how a physical body is not really the character, it’s important for an actor who is embodying a completely different person to psychologically protect themselves by having that delineation. It helps them get into character, and it creates a barrier between character and self. How did we not have that before? It seems so obvious that we needed it.
Duenyas: And different types of actors and different acting styles and schools. I’ve worked with method actors who are just in this. I’m this person now. But they still have to go to crafty and eat lunch and step on a little piece of tape on the floor that’s their mark. So, there’s a real inter-reality that we exist in. The feelings that are engendered in an actor when they’re acting these roles are very real. The tears that you see, those are real tears. The emotions that come up, those are actual real emotions. The narrative and story can be different, but the nervous system is feeling all of these things. So, in I Want Your Sex, there were some real consent violations in that and just outrage of Elliot’s character being like, “How can you do this to me? This is so f**ked up.” But think about someone that’s enacting an assault scene, like a sexual assault scene. It’s not real to your life. It’s not really happening, but acting that and bringing up those emotions and going through those physical beats, the nervous system feels those things. And it’s a very technical job.
I think that’s what is missed about intimacy coordination: There’s a lot of technique. There’s a lot of interpersonal skill. There’s a lot of paperwork. There’s a lot of administrative work, and there’s a lot of conversations that happen around it. It’s a very admin-heavy, technical job to create this beautiful illusion of intimacy that happens on-screen. Knowing that someone is handling the artistry of what it is, handling all the technical stuff, making sure that everyone is protected from a paperwork side and production’s protected from paperwork side and everyone’s agreed to what we’re doing and it’s all on paper and in writing, it sounds really clinical. But then when you get to set and you’ve established all of that, holy sh*t, you can go so far when you’ve gotten all of that structure really down and people feel, I feel good to open up and really do this in this moment.
It’s a workplace interpretation of consent in general.
Duenyas: That’s totally right. Consent is for everywhere. It’s always revocable, and it can breathe, expand, and contract. It needs to be specific, and it needs to be informed. And also, we’re at work. We have a job to do. It’s written in the script that this happens, so how are we going to do this and make this feel and have this feel good?
Do you have a team of people, or are you a team of one?
Duenyas: That depends. We’re usually a team of one, and so it’s kind of a lonely job on set. But when I do big scenes, such as a big orgy scene or a big pool scene with lots of nude people or whatever, I’ll absolutely will work in a team. I’ll have a second on with me, and we’ll work together. Those are really wonderful days because you get to work with someone who understands what we do. And there is really a lot to look after when you’ve got 10, 15 nude background actors and each one has a slightly different need for a different modesty garment or a different rider consideration. It really helps, and it’s just wonderful to be able to work with someone in that way, but we’re typically just a team of one.
Were you a team of one on this film?
Duenyas: No. Jaclyn Chantel, my business partner at Cintima — we run a training organization together, and we also run a film festival called Flicker, which is a film festival for intimate storytelling — we worked together on it, but we weren’t on set the same days. We leapfrogged a couple scenes because I had to leave town for another project. I think I did the first five days, and she did the last two days.
Magnolia Pictures/Everett Collection
Are you saying this film was filmed over one week?
Duenyas: It was filmed over 17 days, and all the intimacy happened in the first six days of shooting. Starting day one, all the intimacy. I was like, “Really? You’re not even going to warm up with the mini golf scene first? Get your feet wet in something else?” We had Charli XCX and Olivia and Cooper and Chase with these nuts schedules. And it’s just how it had to happen.
You really had to be ready day one.
Duenyas: We had to be ready day one. I was like, “Listen, would it be possible to get everyone together for two hours or 90 minutes the day before? We start shooting just to touch base, say hi, establish a safe word. There’s a lot of kink in this. Even just maybe rehearse a couple of things, stage a couple of things.” Everyone agreed that that would be a great idea, and so we were able to do that, and it was a huge help so that you’re not coming to set, meeting everyone on set for the first time and getting into hair and makeup and getting into these beautifully insane costumes and also having to put modesty garments on and jump into an intimate scene. It really helped set a tone. As far as the piece goes, I felt like setting that tone early was not the only reason, but it was a puzzle piece in helping create this environment that everyone really wanted to go as far as they could.
What was the first scene you did?
Duenyas: Everything that happens in [Erika’s] house was the first few days. The first scenes were probably carrying the art into the house, but then from there it got into [the sex scenes]. It might’ve even been that really seminal conversation about Gen Z, smoking the cigarettes when she’s like, “Your generation doesn’t get drunk and have sex and make a bad decision and learn from it.” That was among the first scenes. I don’t remember what the exact first shot was, but we were in that house from day one.
Magnolia Pictures/Everett Collection
This movie really runs the gamut of so many sexual situations that you can be in. Intimacy coordination doesn’t always include a lot of sex in an episode or a movie. Sometimes it’s not about sex at all, but the position is still necessary. Is I Want Your Sex a dream movie for an intimacy coordinator in this regard?
Duenyas: Yeah, it was a dream job for so many different reasons. Number one, just the volume of scenes and the spectrum of intimacy that happens in it. There was so much room for creativity and for different genres. It was a very exciting film to work on. And not only that, working with Gregg and working with this incredible company of people who were all really passionate about working with Gregg Araki and making this vision happen. It was really a dream project in that way, not just because of the sex, but also because of the people and the types of stories they were trying to tell and the really beautiful collaborative nature of how to find these moments. It’s not a machine.
I work on really big television shows, too, and there’s many different time and execution considerations on those. One is not better than the other, but this was just a real opportunity to be in a room with artists and seeing how everyone worked and to also be able to contribute. That was a really special experience.
And it’s not only the wide spectrum of sex scenes and intimacy, but also the way they’re being depicted and written that is so good. I have been very frustrated with the sexlessness of TV and film in recent years, which is also why I love Heated Rivalry because it’s so intimate and beautiful. I feel like this movie is in a similar category because it looks like real life. It was refreshing.
Duenyas: I’m so happy to hear that. That’s a huge compliment that you just paid the film and my position, so I really appreciate that. Thank you. I felt so, too. We were trying to go for realism within the ridiculousness. And so the fantasy on the St. Andrew’s Cross, the lube on the dildo scene, the strap-on on the chest, all of it was just so… And also the dynamics of getting into a threesome for the first time, being really nervous, being bossed around, and what even are dom and sub dynamics?
We did have a lot of conversations about that. And in those roles, how do people who practice those roles very ethically and properly do that? What does it look like when someone doesn’t do that? How do we flirt with that line so that we know what the real kink culture is? We know what people who are pretending to be in the kink culture is, and then there’s this marriage of those two. I’m not saying that there’s pretend stuff, but there’s definitely a lot of scripted consent violations in the story. Playing with that line was very interesting and very, very artistically satisfying.
I Want Your Sex, In Theaters Now
