Why am I crying at a TV show about virgins?

In case you hadn’t noticed, Channel 4 is Channel 4-ing again. Not content with Open House (orgies), Sex Box (sex in a box, with commentary) and of course Naked Attraction (where we are invited to forensically examine the foreskins of accountants from Skelmersdale) they’ve now come up with another doozy. Virgin Island. 

The pitch is like something Alan Partridge might have recorded on his dictaphone on his way back to the Travel Tavern – except it’s a lot more risqué than Monkey Tennis or Arm Wrestling with Chas & Dave. A group of 12 virgins go on a Mediterranean island intimacy retreat to learn how to overcome their sexual blocks. Nobody but Channel 4 would have commissioned it, apart from maybe ITV2, as part of their late night Couples-in-Swimwear-Arguing-Around-a-Firepit-in-Majorca strand. 

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Still, it’s a great opportunity for some cheeky lols, I thought, as I cracked open episode one. Oh the fun I would have getting stuck into this! After about 20 minutes, though, I was in floods of tears, wailing and snottering into a tissue at these lovely, vulnerable young people as they battled with their self-esteem issues and physical awkwardness.

I wept for 23-year-old Emma, a truly gorgeous Kate Moss lookalike who was so convinced that she was repulsive after being called a DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) by her so-called mates that she’d never had a relationship. And touch-phobic Jason, who was so agonised by the idea of intimacy that he couldn’t even shake hands. And poor doe-eyed Taylor, whose heartbreaking assessment of herself was “I’m big and I take up too much space.”

I also didn’t expect to be punching the air with joy when they broke through their mental barriers by successfully fondling the breasts of an intimacy coach, or humping on a sofa in a wigwam.   

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Oh, yes, that’s the Channel 4-ish thing about Virgin Island – the therapy is the very definition of ‘hands on’. An array of sexologists don’t just talk it out, they show them how it’s done. It’s incredibly generous work, if you ask me, although I can’t imagine what the HR situation is, or what you do when you realise you’ve left the grill on while you’re in the middle of touching the forehead of a sweaty 28-year-old delivery driver.

But sexy sex therapists Dr Danielle Harel and Celeste Hirschman, who always seem on the verge of some kind of ecstatic release (I’ll have what they’re having) are dedicated to the cause. Slowly but surely – and often incredibly awkwardly – anxieties are unravelled, neuroses are eased and some of the participants, with the help of surrogate partner therapists, go all the way. Even if you’re not a virgin, some of it will blow your socks off, and also make you wonder whether C4 should bring back their old red triangle warning system.  

Mostly, though, I found it incredibly moving to watch the participants blossom and grow in confidence as they got closer to figuring out who they were and what they enjoyed. Some of them were positively glowing by the end of it, to the point where they seemed like different people entirely.

It also made me think that I too should probably up my game in the bedroom and stop eating pizza and watching Coronation Street during the act of love. After all, it’s not just virgins who need help brushing up their intimacy skills.

So I’d like to pitch Channel 4 my idea for a sequel that doesn’t have young people in it, but Gen X-ers whose ideas about sex were formed by the scene in Carry On Camping when Barbara Windsor’s bra popped off and Bernard Bresslaw said ‘Corrr!’. I’ve no doubt that Old Gits Island will be a smash-hit success – although it probably won’t be as easy on the eye. 

Virgin Island is streaming on channel4.com. Lucy Sweet is a freelance journalist.

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