THE Royal Conservatiore of Scotland in Glasgow, or what was the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, has become the first drama school in the UK to hire a full-time intimacy coach.
Discussing this with an actor friend he noted that this was nothing new in the profession. If voice and fight coaches weren’t enough, he noted, now, “Before John Anonymous and Jill Nobody get to rehearse a kissing scene in Romeo and Juliet at Backwater Rep. they have to first be coached by the 'intimacy' expert”.
Whatever one thinks about this, theatres are a place of work, so they come with different rules to everyday life, especially in the post-Weinstein era. Worryingly, though, expert intervention into intimate areas of life are developing elsewhere.
A student who is just about to finish his degree in England told me that in first year he had a relationship presentation that used the analogy of having a 'cup of tea' – even if you like having a cup of tea it’s important to ask your partner if they’d also like a cup of tea.
In what is not the most nuanced, or adult, presentation you’ll ever come across, the 'cup of tea' consent education seminar comes with a video of stick people pouring tea down one another’s throats and advice like, “and if they’re unconscious, don’t make them tea”.
There is little or no discussion in the UK about the growth of intimacy experts in society and it appears we are following developments in the United States where, particularly in universities, the policing of consent and intimate relationships has become a serious matter.
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An American feminist critic, Laura Kipnis, has however, raised concerns, suggesting that this approach promotes a traditional view of femininity – of the frail woman who needs protecting – something that encourages a narrative where sex is viewed through the prism of female endangerment rather than women’s agency.
Kipnis believes we are moving backwards, replicating a type of Victorian puritanical approach that leads us ever closer to a chaperone type system where intimacy and privacy are overwhelmed by the shadow of vulnerability.
As the front cover of her book, Unwanted Advances, notes, “I can think of no better way to subjugate women than to convince us that assault is around every corner”.
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