EP246 - What Really Happens Behind the Scenes of a Hollywood Sex Scene with Chantal Cousineau

Welcome to episode 246 of the Sexology Podcast! Today I am delighted to welcome Chantal Cousineau (she/her) to the podcast. In this episode, we discuss Chantal's role as an intimacy coordinator, how sexual assault leads to issues of trauma and looking at new practices that are coming onto sets to help prevent these issues.

Chantal Cousineau (she/her) was born in Canada. Raised in a large and loving French-Canadian family, she spent her childhood training tirelessly to become a Tae Kwon-Do champion. Achieving her first-degree black belt at the age of 15, she quickly dominated competitions, winning gold at the Canadian and North American Championships. She started modelling at the age of 17 and soon landed before the lens of famed photographers shooting for Abercrombie & Fitch, Aveda, Italian Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Roots, and many more. She moved to Los Angeles twenty years ago and has since carved out a successful career as an actor shooting television commercials.

She has become a grounded voice within the advocacy community, helping 1,300+ survivors of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse share their #MeToo experiences since 2017. A longtime member of SAG-AFTRA, Chantal serves on several union committees to consult on ways the industry can expand its best practices to move closer towards equal treatment, pay parity, representation, and improving safety standards on sets. Chantal has combined her many years of experience as a performer with her survivor advocacy work to pivot to her new career as an intimacy coordinator. Her most recent intimacy coordinator credits include This Is Us (NBC), The Terminal List (Amazon), and the independent feature film Sharp Stick, which was directed by Lena Dunham.

Chantal is a dual citizen of Canada and the US and speaks both French and English fluently.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Looking into Chantal’s role as an intimacy coordination and what it entails
• How Chantal became intimacy coordinator and the journey that led her to this role
• Analyzing the dynamic of an intimacy coordinator has with other people on set

• How sexual assault leads to issues of trauma
• How Chantal had a Me-Too experience
• The importance of self-care
• How many victims of sexual assault do not report it to the police
• The ways in which Chantal holds stories of sexual assault for victims

• Looking at ways in which young actresses are vulnerable to issues of sexual assault
• New practices that are coming onto sets to help prevent these issues

Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode. Use the link below to get 10% of your first month of online therapy with BetterHelp:

https://www.betterhelp.com/sexologypodcast

Find Chantal Cousineau Online

https://www.intimacyprofessionalsassociation.com

Expanding Imagination Checklist

https://oasis2care.com/free-erotica/

Podcast Produced by Pete Bailey - http://petebailey.net/audio

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