18 SEPTEMBER 2019 THE ATLANTIC- SKETCH
THE SEX-SCENE COACH
Onscreen intimacy is endangered.
Can Alicia Rodis save it?BY KATE JULIANHIS IS MY KIT.” Alicia
Rodis, who since early last year has been
HBO’s lead intimacy coordinator, a new
title that translates roughly to chief sex-
scene coach, held up a clear vinyl case
filled with what at first glance appeared
to be toiletries and packages of pantyhose.
On closer examination, though, the prod-
ucts and their names were mysterious.
Shibue. Hibue. Stanga.
“Let’s say we’re coming in to do a sex
scene,” she said. “They’re simulating
sex and they’re excluding genitals—we
are going to see someone fully naked,
but not their genitals—and they’re in the
bed, with sheets. So what do we need to
make sure?” Here she picked up a Shibue
(“she-boo”), which looks like a panty
liner except that it’s meant to adhere toa person rather than to an undergarment.
“We take a Shibue, open it up, and put a
silicone guard underneath so everyone
becomes like a Barbie doll.”
Rodis wants both to shield sensitive
body parts and to make their contours
un detectable. She explained that cos-
tume departments know all about the
items in her kit, but she doesn’t like to
leave anything to chance.
If she’s new on a set, she
will bring Shibues in a full
range of human skin tones
and some silicone guards,
too. She waved a lavender
package containing one
(brand name: Silicone Val-
ley), then continued rif-
fling through her supplies.
“Knee pads or elbow pads in
case someone’s on a hard
floor. Sticky tape, moleskin.
Wet Ones, tissues, breath
mints. Baby oil so they can take anything
that’s adhesive off. Razors—though usu-
ally I’ll talk with actors beforehand and
ask, ‘Could you shave your bikini line so
we know that you’re not going to get a
free spa treatment when we take off the
Shibue?’ ” She held up a Hibue. “The same
thing, but for someone who has a penis.”Rodis, who in a previous life was
an actor and a stuntwoman, still has
headshot-ready blond ringlets and a
performer’s lithe physicality. That day, a
Wednesday, she was working from her
home office in Astoria, Queens, prepar-
ing for shoots on various shows. Among
them was The Deuce, the David Simon and
George Pelecanos drama about sex work
in 1970s Times Square and the birth of
modern porn, which begins its third and
final season this month. Rodis’s book-
shelves were packed with volumes about
theater, sex, and sword fighting; across
from her desk hung a certificate from the
Society of American Fight Directors iden-
tifying her as a stage-combat teacher and
a bulletin board covered with photos, car-
toons, and buttons with slogans like “No
does not mean Convince me.”
We sat down on a couch and Rodis
turned on an episode from The Deuce’s sec-
ond season. She fast-forwarded to a scene
that takes place on a porn set done up with
a kitschy Arabian Nights look. Like many
scenes in The Deuce, it is sexually graphic
but deliberately unsexy, in this case comi-
cally so. As the movie-shoot-within-a-
TV-episode unfolds, the porn director
barks commands at an actor named Tyler
(played by Justin Stiver), who appears to be
naked save for a gold lamé turban. Tyler
is having sex with a porn actor named
Shana, and the director wants him to raise
her hips six inches for a better camera
angle; Shana resists indignantly, offering
a vivid description of what the requestedposition will mean for her insides. “I don’t
want to hurt her!” Tyler protests.
When I asked Rodis how she’d facili-
tated the scene, she explained that she’d
briefed both actors on the planned
nudity and physical interaction, and on
what type of wardrobe assistance—or
lack-of- wardrobe assistance—theyFor a fight scene,
choreographers mapped
out every beat.
Why weren’t sex scenes
governed by the
same approach?DISPATCHES“