Sex Lives of the Physically Handicapped Filmed for TV

Calling all fans of TLC’s Strange Sex: If you’re down to watch more brutally awkward, real-life sex encounters on TV, the UK’s Channel 4 has got your back. Their new documentary titled Can Have Sex Will Have Sex examines the lives of four disabled people searching to fulfill their sexual needs while a camera crew films the whole thing.

The TV documentary is set to air this month, but is already coming under fire for its supposedly risqué content. One of the four disabled people the movie follows is a 26-year-old named John, whose physical handicap has prevented him from losing his v-card. His mom proceeds to hire an escort in the hopes that John will lose his virginity and enjoy sex like many of his non-handicapped peers do. Obviously, moms hiring escorts for their sons makes viewers a bit nervy, so Channel Four has had to come out and defend the series even before it’s hit the airwaves.

A Channel 4 spokeswoman told the Daily Star: “The film explores the different way disabled people deal with barriers they can face in trying to fulfill that basic human need — sexual intimacy.”

This isn’t the first sex-related documentary Channel 4 is getting flack for: 40 Year Old Virgins, another awkward and fumbling display of belated sexual coming-of-age, features a 45-year-old “devout Christian” named Clive. But instead of finding true love and doing the deed with Catherine Keener à la Judd Apatow’s movie of the same name, Clive flies from the UK to the US to sleep with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, the celebrity sex therapist who inspired Helen Hunt’s performance in The Sessions.

Clive’s intimacy problems stem from his shyness and religious background, but the show also follows a woman named Rosie, who can’t stand being touched by men because they smell like “a cross between aftershave and ham.” Props to her for coming up with the best diss against smelly dudes. Also, you probably shouldn’t have sex with guys that smell like that.

Audiences have had knee-jerk reactions to the documentaries, and it’s easy to cringe at the footage of some dweeb IT guy nervously getting his boner touched for the first time, but the films display losing virginity the way that it usually is: awkward, kind of gross and with a lot of nervous giggling. Wheelchair sex probably isn’t like making out with Drake in a wheelchair or drunkenly mounting Lieutenant Dan, and losing your virginity if you’re an awkward 40-something probably doesn’t feel like a Judd Apatow romcom either.