I Want Your Sex opens OutfestNEXT as Gregg Araki returns to film

I Want Your Sex opened OutfestNEXT in Los Angeles with Gregg Araki back behind the camera for his first feature since 2014, and the director came ready to talk about sex, set safety and why the festival felt like home.

Araki spoke to Variety at Thursday’s opening night event at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre, where his new comedy helped mark OutfestNEXT’s return after a two-year pause tied to financial and management problems.

The Los Angeles filmmaker, who received Outfest’s achievement award in 2005, told Variety he was thrilled to be part of what he called the festival’s “rebirth.” He said his films have long been made “by, for and about queer people,” adding that the event brought together his city and his community.

What is I Want Your Sex about?

I Want Your Sex stars Olivia Wilde as Erika Tracy, an ambitious artist who begins a kinky BDSM relationship with her young assistant, Elliot, played by Cooper Hoffman. According to Variety, the relationship sparks Elliot’s sexual awakening and comes with near-death stakes.

The cast also includes Charli xcx, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders and Daveed Diggs. Araki co-wrote the film with Karley Sciortino, his collaborator from Now Apocalypse.

Araki described Wilde’s character to Variety as a vehicle for his own outlook on risk, desire and growing up. He said people can reach middle age quickly and may regret avoiding bad dates, painful relationships or messy love, because those experiences help people learn about themselves.

Hoffman’s character, Araki said, reflects a Gen Z perspective shaped by the pandemic. He told Variety that younger people can be uneasy with social interaction and are also living with the threat of being filmed in public, a pressure he said would have changed his own teenage trips to gay bars.

Why did Gregg Araki use an intimacy coordinator?

Araki told Variety that I Want Your Sex was the first of his movies to use an intimacy coordinator. The practice has become more common in film and television over the past decade, while Araki’s previous feature, White Bird in a Blizzard, came out in 2014.

He said he lets actors decide what helps them feel most comfortable during sex scenes. Araki also told Variety he has heard bad accounts about some intimacy coordinators making scenes feel more awkward, while saying that he personally feels at ease directing sexual material because it has been part of his work for years.

Araki said a director’s job is to keep the set safe for performers, especially because acting already leaves people exposed. Variety reported that Wilde arrived with more experience filming nude scenes, while Hoffman had not done nude or sex scenes before.

According to Araki, Hoffman was frightened by the material but wanted to take it on for that reason. Araki praised that willingness in his comments to Variety.

I Want Your Sex drew distributor attention at Sundance earlier this year, with Magnolia Pictures ultimately taking U.S. rights after a bidding contest, Variety reported.

Araki, whose 1990s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy helped define New Queer Cinema, said independent film is in a lively but difficult moment. He told Variety that younger audiences, including Gen Z and the Letterboxd crowd, are helping push cinema away from old formulas, even as getting films made and released remains hard.

I Want Your Sex is scheduled to open in theaters July 31.

This story draws on original reporting from Variety.