Sexological Bodyworkers and Surrogate Partners explained as wild new show sees virgins on 'hands-on' course

It turns out young people just aren’t having sex as much anymore.

I know, I know, in a world where it feels like everything is sexualised, you’d think it would be the other way around.

But Channel 4 found in a survey that more than a third of those aged 16-24 are virgins, extending to one in five people between the ages of 16 to 30. And the broadcaster has come up with a wild show to try and combat this: Virgin Island.

While the name might raise eyebrows, the new series is a surprisingly moving watch – even if you do have to keep your eyes behind your splayed fingers at times.

Twelve adult virgins are taken to a luxury retreat where they undergo a unique ‘hands-on’ course to overcome the fears holding them back from going all-in.

Here, they’ll work with Sexological Bodyworkers and Surrogate Partners as a team of specialists help them out.

Specialists on Virgin Island

There’s a whole team of experts on the show, led by the Somatica Method creators, Dr Danielle Harel and Celeste Hirschman.

They spoke to LADbible to help explain what some of the more obscure specialist job titles mean and what their roles actually entail as viewers may be a little confused (or concerned) about just what is going on.

As well as the Surrogate Partners and Sexological Partners, there are job descriptions like the Emotional Intimacy Coach, Sensuality Coach and Clinical Therapist.

Ultimately, all the specialists’ aim is to help the participants overcome their fears and worries and if they’re ready for it, to have full sex.

“It’s a triad relationship. So there’s a surrogate, there’s a clinical therapist and there’s the client. This triadic format really helps them relax into the therapeutic process of surrogacy,” Danielle explains of the process for individuals, outside of the group workshops.

“I think what's beautiful is that the goal for them is to learn to how to relate with other humans. So, no one's faking anything. It’s not a service. It's something that they need to learn; how to be with another person, what that person needs to be aroused, what they themselves need, what they need to feel, or what they are willing to go to, how they are getting aroused, and what they are ready to go for and I think this process teaches them this authentic experience of being with a surrogate partner.”

The participants work with a team of specialists. (Channel 4)

Sexological Bodyworkers

Celeste explains that this category of specialists help people ‘with getting more into connection and pleasure in their own body’ as well as lowering ‘shame’ and helping them feel ‘more sense of embodied pleasure’. On Virgin Island, Aisha Paris-Smith and Thomas Rocourt work with the participants in this role.

She adds: “The boundaries [of a Sexological Bodyworker] are that their clients can potentially be naked on a table. They can receive touch, but it's one way touch. So, the practitioner touches the client, and the client can be naked, but the client doesn't touch the practitioner back.”

While Surrogates may be more of the ‘two-way touch’, Sexological Bodyworkers ‘are doing a little bit more of the work around the functional, and kind of sensation-based expansion of pleasure in the body’.

They explore touch therapy. (Channel 4)

Surrogate Partners

So, as you may have guessed, this lot are a little more involved than the Bodyworkers. On the show, Kat Slade and Andrew Lazarus serve as Surrogates for the participants.

With the Somatica method, they ‘can be naked’ as well as the client themselves.

And you guessed it: “In surrogacy, their boundaries of their method can be to have full sex with a client, but it is still an authentic process.”

“They have a pretty structured protocol that they need to go through, that they have found is most helpful to people who are learning, and may end up having a full sexual experience with a client,” Celeste says. “So there's a very, structured, systematic approach in that way.”

Danielle and Celeste also do the ‘two-way touch’ associated with the Surrogacy as they teach them ‘seduction, escalation, intimate connection, communication’ as ‘everybody has their own rules’.

Early on in the series, viewers see surrogate Kat working with Zac on touch, but he asks to stop as he ‘wants more’ as Celeste says he is ‘frustrated’ with the speed of this process but ‘it’s in place for a reason’.

The expert adds that it’s not the Surrogates’ job to just go straight in for sex, ‘the job is to work authentically through the intimacy’.

Virgin Island begins on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm.