Behind its slightly ludicrous title, Virgin Island has noble ambitions. The new Channel 4 show seeks to help struggling adults foster a healthy relationship with their bodies and sex. Like I said, noble ambitions. Try to remember that as you grit your teeth watching a young man fondle the breasts of a woman as she straddles him on a tribal-print couch.
It’s one of several blushworthy scenes in the experimental new series, which sends 12 adults (the virgins of its title) to an idyllic Croatian island where they take part in a two-week sex therapy retreat. For various reasons, including a lack of self-confidence, severe insecurity, bullying, and a general fear of touch, the participants have not had sex – or, in many cases, any sexual contact whatsoever.
They are far from the only ones. Young people are simply not getting busy like they used to: a sex recession, sociologists call it. One study by University College London, which followed more than 16,000 people, found that one in eight 26-year-olds in England hadn’t had sex. This, despite the fact that sex is everywhere! Between social media, porn and OnlyFans, public life is more hypersexualised than ever. And yet here I am in front of my telly at 9pm on a Monday evening, cringeing as two fully clothed people simulate a hot and heavy interaction up against a wall in front of 12 onlookers, all in various states of cringe themselves.
These two people – plus the woman from earlier being fondled on the couch – are part of the small network of softly spoken licensed sex therapists tasked with treating the virgins using “hands on” therapy sessions. Included in that network – controversially so – are Kat Slade and Andre Lazarus: the two sexual surrogates on the island and the only ones qualified to actually engage in sexual intercourse with individual members of the group. The other “bodyworkers” draw the line at heavy petting. Very heavy.
This is where Virgin Island runs headlong into an ethical quagmire. Historically, the client-therapist relationship is a chaste one, with sex and romance between the two parties very much discouraged. This is due to a host of reasons, of course, including the sensitive power dynamic at play.
Sexual surrogates defy this rule in every sense. Unlike more traditional forms of therapy, the role of a surrogate partner is all about using touch (and sex) as a means to build confidence and encourage healthy intimacy in their clients. Sometimes, as in Virgin Island, these clients are adult virgins who have anxiety about performance and/or vulnerability. Other times, they might have suffered trauma that makes sexual activity difficult, or have recently undergone a gender transition and are seeking help in getting to know their body.
Really, there’s an infinite number of reasons that someone might engage the services of a sexual surrogate – many of which Vincent Armand has seen firsthand. Based in the Midlands, Armand has been a sexual surrogate for 20 years. “I work an awful lot with what I call the ‘novice and nervous’ – people who are very fearful, or who (for various reasons) haven’t had the experience to try something they want to try in a safe environment,” he says. Incidentally, “novice and nervous” is an apt descriptor for those on Virgin Island.
Armand used to work as a psychiatric nurse – a job, he says, that isn’t actually too distant from what he does now. “A lot of the time it feels similar to nursing,” he says. “What I’m doing is working through the complex needs of the individual, and working out how to respond to them in the best and most appropriate way I can.”
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Sometimes that includes sex; sometimes it doesn’t. If sex is part of the treatment, it is done in the presence of a licensed therapist to oversee it. In many cases, though, sexual surrogates may provide something as seemingly inconsequential as a hug.
“Sometimes, the work I do amounts to no more than handholding,” Armand says. “Often, someone will ask me to stroke their hair and hold them.” It’s not uncommon that he will receive a message from a potential client along the lines of: “I saw your picture and I really fancy you. Can you run your hand down my face, touch my knee and give me a kiss on the forehead?” Some people, he says, simply aren’t used to being touched – or cared for.
Other times, his background in psychiatry comes in handy when treating people with “straightforward sexual hang-ups” or shame around their fetish. “If the client is too embarrassed to talk about it, I let them know it’s completely fine, and they’re safe, and that it’s surprisingly common,” he says. “Because I’ve communicated with people who had acute psychiatric illness when I was a nurse, I understand it’s difficult for some people to express what they want.”
For this reason, Armand adds, there is much about sexual surrogacy that feels “motherly”. “I know that might sound strange,” he says, “but the work itself feels nurturing somehow – only with an additional sexual attraction.” The process itself is “very gentle, very slow – and there’s lots of checking in and asking if they’re comfortable”.
I work with a lot of disabled people because I believe sex is a basic human right
The sex therapists on Virgin Island subscribe to the same “gentle” mentality as Armand, with each one taking notable care to ensure their partner is comfortable and heard. The speed, though, is accelerated because, well, this is TV. “Virgins get sex-comfortable in two weeks” is infinitely more sellable than “Virgins get sex-comfortable in 18 months”.
In reality, some sexual surrogates will not engage in sexual contact with their clients until after completing months of other types of therapeutic work. And sometimes, as in Armand’s experience, it is not a one-off. He has a roster of regulars, including one lawyer in London whom he has been visiting for 12 years.
Inevitably, this brings us to what the difference is between sexual surrogacy and sex work, if these therapists are being paid for their sexual services. The answer differs depending on whom you ask. Armand, for example, considers himself an escort and therefore a sex worker. Others believe sexual surrogacy is technically not sex work, due to its use within a therapeutic and clinical setting.
Like sex work, sexual surrogacy is not illegal. The UK’s College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists, however, advises against it in its code of ethics and practice, stating that therapists must “not provide, advocate, or help anyone procure sexual surrogacy or bodywork involving touch”.
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In pop culture, sexual surrogacy got a big boost in awareness (and support) after the release of The Sessions in 2012. That film stars John Hawkes as Mark O’Brien, a real-life poet, writer and journalist who died in 1999 after a life confined to an iron lung. Helen Hunt plays Cheryl Cohen Greene, the sex surrogate he hires to guide him through his first time having sex. The film was nominated for an Oscar and went far in helping to advocate for sexual surrogacy.
A number of Armand’s clients are disabled people who need sexual assistance in some form or another. The same is true for clients of sexual surrogates in general; most of the time the profession is in the news in relation to disabled people advocating for or against it in places where sexual surrogacy is illegal.
When Armand connects with clients through the TLC Trust, a UK organisation that seeks to assist disabled people in accessing responsible sexual services, he finds that the initial communication is very professional. “Almost clinical,” he says. “I ask questions, such as whether a carer is going to be present. I arrange a call and record that call, so I can work out whether the person is genuine or not, then ask for a deposit.”
“I work with a lot of disabled people because I believe sex is a basic human right,” he says. “And I think an awful lot of people are critical or prejudiced against the idea of disabled people having a healthy interest in sex. It’s a need that we all have. Certain people just find it physically harder to access than others. I can assist them with that – as well as providing basic warmth and intimacy.”
Virgin Island doesn’t make for particularly comfortable viewing. I share the sentiment of one of the participants who, faced with watching two therapists breathing heavily and pressed up against one another, said it was an experience akin to watching a sex scene with your parents, multiplied by a thousand.
Two episodes in, and sex is yet to be had by anyone, but by all indicators, that’s the direction in which we’re heading. It remains to be seen whether the participants’ experiences with sexual surrogacy will have lasting positive effects – but here’s hoping.
‘Virgin Island’ airs weekly on Mondays at 9pm on Channel 4
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