scott, in brief

Virgin School
Channel 4 Tuesday 15 May 10pm

Virgin School follows the emotional and physical journey of 26-year-old virgin James as he embarks on a unique four month course for sexually inexperienced men, in Amsterdam. Situated at Aquarion, an established 'school for love and leadership', the course is designed by experienced professionals to boost his self confidence – both socially and sexually, and concludes with the opportunity for him to lose his virginity to one of the sex therapist coaches.

channel4.com

Wow what a program. quite interesting and quite scary and quite thought provoking. Uncomfortable to watch and quite funny to watch at points. we were flipping as nothing good was on and ended up watching this due to a miscommunication form myself to my wife.

anyway

James goes to Holland to meet sex therapists who let him get comforatble with himself naked. with a female in the room. with femals touching him naked and him touching them.

really bizzare in so many ways. the sex therpists were older ladies who it seemed James had a bond with but not an attaraction to. It seemed strangely pressurised as part of finishing the course was the opportunity to lose his virginity to one of the sex therapists. (he saw three seperate femal therapists and one male.

The questions for me were around James attitude to viriginity and sex, are these actually views society holds generally, or are these internal prespectives shared with other virigns.

James made to statements reasonably close together in the film. He says "what i want to know how to be confident and talk with girls" then a couple of minutes later, he claims he doesn't fancy his sex therapist who he may have sex with, yet he can talk to her and be comfortable.

To me his attitude towards sex was similar to that of people who have a list of tasks to do and does them. The problem I have is this done sex, now I am whole aguement.

sex is good and enjoyable. i have discovered.
But i dobt sex is essential to live a complete life.

Argueably I have never led a complete life as I have never suba dived or had a parachute jump. ihese thing create a big wall of emotions and feeling in the body. yet life is not incomplete without it. (I would say that you could pleasure yourself, and get the bodyily function aspect out the way, thereby facilitating the bodily fucntionality aspect of sex.)

So I don't know is se essential to life. no
would you suffer adversely for never having sex. no
Is sex something good. yes

I wonder how prevelent this attitude to sex, need to do it in order to be complete exists within wider society. from my work with young people, i would guess that amungst young people sex is still a big myth, pressure.

Yet for adults whats it like. Is there a huge pressure around the issue of virginity for adults. At christmas I saw a play written by young people they used a chocolate oragne to show your sex life. they showed that everytime you have casual sex you lose a bit of your chocolate orange. The implication being, that sex is a gift to give to someone. everytime you sleep with someone else the worse your chocolate oragne looks.

I am not sure i am happy with this anallergy either. If your not doing sex. your not missing part of your life. Neither if you are having sex, are you making yourself less to give to someone else.

Sex is good.
But I am unsure what to think about it in terms of the two views expressed above.







According to a recent study (by Radio 1, MTV and Durex) the vast majority of people lose their virginity between the ages of 16 and 18. However, there is a small section of society who remain virgins well into middle age. Around 4% of people haven't had sex by the time they hit 25.

James is one of them. He's 'never even got to first base.' He says that 'Being a Virgin you get judged, you're isolated, an outcast. For me losing my virginity is a rite of passage, it's about becoming a man and feeling like everyone else, feeling that you're not abnormal'.

James had previously given up all hope of ever having sex or having a meaningful relationship with a woman but that could all be about to change as he heads off to Virgin School.