We’re always being told about new ways to improve our sex lives. But if there’s anyone whose advice we should be taking, it’s an intimacy coordinator – someone who works with on-screen sex day in and day out.

Intimacy coordinators are a relatively new concept. They are trained professionals who are bought in to work on film and television sets to ensure that scenes involving nudity, simulated sex, or other intimate physical contact are conducted safely and with clear consent from everyone involved. Over the last decade, intimacy coordinators have become more common, particularly in #MeToo era.

But they can help us off-screen too. Britain’s first intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien has used her years of film experience to pen a book on helpful tips on how we can improve our own sex lives, while respecting each other’s boundaries. In Intimacy: A Field Guide to Finding Connection and Feeling Your Deep Desires, O’Brien provides helpful tips and guided exercises for readers to try at home, while also breaking down myths and misconceptions about what having great sex means.

When it comes to this stuff, O’Brien has a wealth of experience under her belt. She worked as an intimacy coordinator on the BBC’s hugely popular adaption of Normal People, alongside I May Destroy You and Netflix’s Sex Education. All these shows started huge off-screen conversations about topics such as consent and female pleasure thanks to their sex scenes.

However, in a previous interview with The Metro, O’Brien stated that it’s a common misconception that intimacy coordinators are sex experts. ‘What we are experts at is supporting the actor-director process. And we’re experts in choreography, body knowledge and anatomy, and in supporting that choreography telling the right character story. I am not an expert in sexual content at all – that’s what I will research. I’ve got my books,’ she told the outlet.’ When I did Gentleman Jack, I had to go and research. When I did It’s a Sin, I talked to people from that community, as any actor would with any subjects that they’re asked to do.

As for O’Brien’s book, it has a whole host of important sex advice for couples to get to grips with. One of these is the idea of ‘Tuesday sex.’ Like the name implies, this is sex that feels ‘part of your routine’ and is the opposite to ‘Disney World sex’, which is things like sexy lingerie or getting intimate after a steamy date night.

In her book, O’Brien writes that getting comfortable with sex that strips back the ‘bells and whistles’ is key to ‘cementing a regular connection and strengthening emotional ties’ for couples in long-term relationships.
Meanwhile, Hollywood Sex is the type we’re more likely to see portrayed on screen. In an excerpt from Intimacy, as quoted in the MailOnline, Ita explained how Hollywood is obsessed with ‘Disney World sex’ that is often based on ‘super fantasies about what is supposed to happen’ during intercourse.

According to Ita, some of the most ‘damaging’ ways in which sex is portrayed on-screen include the lack of lubrication and the speed of the female orgasm, as she acknowledged that many ‘don’t have an orgasm via penetration in any case’.

How does O’Brien get such amazing realistic results from the sex scenes she choregraphs? It’s all about making things as sexy as possible while respecting the actor’s boundaries. In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, O’Brien explained how, on set of Normal People, ‘Daisy, Paul and I would talk through where they could touch each other, where they could kiss each other – as an example, in the early scenes Daisy had to wear a wig, so she had a rule about Paul not running fingers through her hair.’ She added ‘While that might sound banal, it is really important because an actor doesn’t want to have to worry about that while filming sex, they want to be relaxed.’

While it may seem like everyone is having amazing sex (thanks, Hollywood) statistics tell a different story. A 2018 survey by Gransnet and Mumsnet, in association with Relate, found that over a quarter of the platform’s users said that their relationship is ‘sexless’ (no sex at all in the past year, or fewer than ten times in the past year). Then, 20% said they’ve had sex fewer than 10 times and 8% said they’ve had no sex at all over the previous 12 months.

So how can we apply O’Brien’s life to our own sex lives off-screen? Staying present is key. According to O’Brien’s book, self-esteem and self-love are crucial for a healthy sex life, particularly when it comes to maintaining intimacy in a long-term marriage. Some of her advice in her new book includes looking into a mirror and saying ‘I choose to love myself. I am enough. I believe in myself.’ You can also look into the eyes of your partner for a minute, while ‘sharing your wonderings.’ As O’Brien says, it’s ‘possible to have intimacy without sex, and sex without intimacy.’

The bottom line is that, in O’Brien’s world, good sex doesn’t have to be complicated. After all, isn’t the whole point of sex pleasure – not pressure?

Ita O’Brien 2025. Extracted from Intimacy: A Field Guide to Finding Connection and Feeling Your Deep Desires by Ita O’Brien (Ebury £16.99), published on June 5.