• 40-Year-Old Virgins follows IT engineer Clive as he undergoes sex therapy
• Works with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, 68, who inspired film The Sessions
• Devout Christian loses his virginity to surrogate after two weeks of therapy
• Mediawatch said documentary could 'cross the line into voyeurism'
  

By Kerry Mcdermott

PUBLISHED: 07:18 EST, 26 March 2013 | UPDATED: 08:03 EST, 26 March 2013

Scenes of a 45-year-old IT engineer losing his virginity to a 68-year-old 'sex surrogate' are to be aired on prime-time television.

Channel 4 documentary 40-Year-Old Virgins follows devout Christian Clive as he flies to the U.S. to meet Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a sex therapist and surrogate sexual partner whose work inspired last year's Oscar-nominated film The Sessions starring Helen Hunt.

Viewers will see Ms Cohen-Greene perform a sex act on shy Clive, from Hertfordshire, who has intercourse for the first time after a fortnight of radical sex therapy with the surrogate.

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The documentary, set to air at 9pm on Thursday, shows the 'intense bond' that develops between Clive and Ms Cohen-Greene as she helps him to face his fears of intimacy, Channel 4 said.

The show - the latest in a string of Channel 4 documentaries to tackle the intimate details of subjects' sex lives - also follows 29-year-old Rosie, who dreams of marriage and children, but can't bear to be touched by men.

Virgin Rosie, who thinks men smell like 'a cross between aftershave and ham', is seen working with her own surrogate partner, 55-year-old Gary, an ex-professional tennis player turned counsellor.

Vivienne Patterson, a spokeswoman for Mediawatch, which campaigns for family values in the media, said she worried that the documentary could cross the line from educational programming into voyeurism.

'I haven't seen it yet but I do understand there is a scene in there where he [Clive] goes to see a sex therapist and eventually you see him losing his virginity,' she said.

Ms Patterson said that while educational programming was 'fantastic', problems could crop up because of the expectation that shows also be entertaining - particularly given the documentary's 9pm prime-time slot.

'You get this very difficult cross-over,' she said, citing previous Channel 4 shows like The Joy of Teen Sex.

The factual entertainment series was billed as a 'bold and informative' look at the love lives and sex lives of teenagers, but was branded 'porn' by critics.

'It's legitimate to have a programme where teens can ask questions about matters sexual... but it became exploitative,' Ms Patterson said.

In 2007 Channel 4 broadcast Virgin School, which followed 26-year-old James as he attended a course for sexually inexperienced men in Amsterdam.