In becoming a public pastime and a topic for incessant conversation, sex has not increased its style. Indeed much of what it formerly possessed it has lost. — Quentin Crisp

The UK's Channel 4 followed James Reilly, 26, in his quest to lose his virginity in Virgin School. This compelling documentary kicked off the three one-off programmes from the network's Virgin Season last night.

James Reilly wanted to lose his virginity and "become a man, not an outcast". After a childhood of being bullied and teased at the hands of his peers he acknowledges some resentment towards women, having been told by girls feigning interest in him for fun that they could never go out with him because he was "so ugly". He isn't ugly at all. His low self-esteem marred his facial expression, posture, demeanour, and personal style, but he is quite a good-looking man.

James fits every stereotype going as far as male virgins and those inexperienced in sex go, however — painfully shy, bespectacled, lacking in self-esteem, and worried about talking to women. He goes clothes-and-underwear shopping for sexless, conservative outfits with his grandmother and has little social life. His mother remarked, "He doesn't have a very confident John Travolta strut down the street." Shown delivering the local free newspaper, it was clear that James had no strut whatsoever. His best friend observed that "women don't think much of him."

“I don’t think I’ve ever even been to first base”, James mused shyly. It turned out that not only had he never been to first base with a woman, but he’d never touched one in any way or been on a bed with one (“Apart from my mum, of course”).

Moreover, he wasn’t even in the habit of touching himself. The documentary followed him on his journey to the Aquarion School for Love and Leadership in Amsterdam, for a four-month intensive course aimed at teaching sexually inexperienced men how to grow in confidence and make love. As his beloved Nan helped him pick out the very plainest ill-fitting boxers and y-fronts for his trip to Holland, James confided that, “She’s been led to believe it’s a confidence course, nothing else. She might be a bit shocked.” She is now!

In Amsterdam, a kind old man showed James how to put on a condom, using a dildo. Carla, a grandmotherly intimacy coach, showed him how to touch breasts and recognize and touch a vagina and clitoris, using her breasts, vagina, and clitoris. Fifty-eight-year-old Bridgit, a vision in her rainbow kaftan, showed him how to masturbate and make love, using her whole body in a process of masturbating and love-making.