One of the first things we’re told about having sex is that the first time isn’t supposed to be good; that it’s not going to give you a toe-curling orgasm that would make even Dame Jilly Cooper blush. But an important distinction that’s often forgotten is that, while it might be bumpy, it is perfectly possible for you to have a good experience. In fact, it should be good.
My first sexual experience at the age of 18 was bleak. As a closeted queer person in a small rural town in England, the sexual landscape I was living in wasn’t satiating my growing sexual appetite, rendering me in a state of famine that resulted in a frisson in the woods with a man who drove an icy blue Peugeot. It was far from romantic, and it certainly didn’t teach me anything about my own sexual desires, nor another person’s.
So when I saw the teaser for Channel 4’s new series Virgin Island, which airs tonight (May 12), I wished for a moment that I could go back in time and learn, like they do on the show, how to have good sex for the first time. Not because I wanted the physicality to be perfect, but so my relationship with sex could begin from a place of wholeness and gentle curiosity, rather than racked with shame and desperation.
The show, which takes 12 virgins from across the UK to an island retreat led by world-leading sex therapists and intimacy coaches, is a chance for participants (and viewers) to see what it looks like to begin your journey with intimacy as an adult. Not only are some of the participants fearful of having sex, but many of them find holding hands or even hugging a deeply intimidating and exposing act. To guide them through it, they engage with specially-trained surrogate partner therapists, who act as safe sounding boards for them to explore what it might be like going from hand-holding to sex, all the while having moments to pause, check-in, and explore what they’re feeling in the heat of the moment.
For me, as a queer adult recalibrating my relationship to sex, it’s refreshing to see people the same age or older taking a similar leap to expand their understanding of sex in a way that puts themselves first.
Virgin Island makes it clear from the get go that although the participants want to have sex, they’re not just here to tick it off their to-do list and then get the first flight home. This is about learning about their mental blocks, and uncovering what’s preventing them from engaging in intimacy. From somatic therapy with professional practitioners to exploring massage with the fellow virginal participants — nothing is off limits. In the most intimate sessions, the Virgin Islanders end up hot and bothered in a yurt, fondling breasts and leaving with a sense of euphoria that is unexpectedly touching to witness.
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Although we tend to think that being a virgin in your late 20s or even early 30s is rare, in 2018, one in eight people aged 26 were virgins in the UK. As the Virgin Island participants — who range in age from 22 to 30 — open up about why they’ve never had sex, the reasons are understandable, even to those of us who have had sex.
For many of the women on the retreat, social media and unrealistic beauty standards have left them feeling like they’re not worthy of sex at all, because the people they see having sex online don’t look like them. For the men, meanwhile, the idea that they must lead and initiate sex has left them feeling like they can’t fulfil that role, and so they’re destined to never have sex at all. The workshops and private therapy sessions demonstrate how many of our sexual hang-ups are in fact emotional knots that need to be untangled before we even think about walking into the bedroom.
Taylor, a 29-year-old receptionist who came to the island to understand the fears she has around intimacy, showcased how powerful these sessions can be when engaging with clinical therapist Abby Sheneman, and male surrogate partner therapist Andre. Seeing Taylor openly discuss the panic she feels when it looks like sex is on the cards with a potential partner, and the anxiety that arises when working with Andre, is a deeply relatable story for myself and many other people who may have had uncomfortable experiences with men both in and out of the bedroom.
The show doesn’t place shame or blame on any one of the 12 participants as to their own reasons for being a virgin — and this is something that people of all genders, sexualities, and identities should take away from it. The sex you’re having, or wanting to have, should never leave you with a sense of shame or embarrassment; it shouldn’t be something that you feel pressured into doing ‘just because everyone else is’, or because you’ve reached a certain age. Sex should always be an act rooted in desire, connection, and consent — something that I, at the age of 18, couldn’t even comprehend, living in a world that still framed queer sex as wrong or immoral.
Although we’ve come a long way, sex — and especially virginity — is still, sadly, shrouded in shame. It’s still the norm to go into your first sexual encounter blind, or with unrealistic ideas about what sex ‘should’ look like. Having sex in the back of an icy blue Peugeot is a situation many will recognise to some degree. Not knowing how to initiate conversation with people you find attractive or fearing intimacy because of past sexual or emotional turbulence is the norm.
And yet, while Virgin Island aims to shift these norms (or at least spark conversation around them), it’s hard not to feel a sense of mild bewilderment that these people are having to learn how to explore sex in a safe and exciting way on a reality TV show — and one where they have to be shipped off to a remote island and asked to play with butt plugs with strangers. The fact that Virgin Island exists proves that sex education in the UK needs to move on from just putting condoms on bananas, and should instead encourage candid, frank, and honest conversations about consent, porn, pleasure, and the physical and the mental challenges that can come with sexual intimacy.
Sex is as unique as the individual having it, and there’s no one way to have sex. We have to be able to learn for ourselves what we like and what we don’t like — and, while it may not be the perfect vessel, Virgin Island is at least demonstrating that to audiences like me, who, I hope, will use its message as a catalyst to really ask ourselves once and for all: how do I have the sex that I actually want to have?
