Can Have Sex, Will Have Sex: Channel 4 to show mum hiring escort for her disabled son weeks after complaints over 40 Year Old Virgins

Can Have Sex Will Have Sex, a Channel 4 programme (Channel 4)

Last week Channel 4 received complaints about a documentary in which a man, 45, lost his virginity to a sex surrogate. Now it is due to broadcast another controversial programme in which a woman pays for an escort to help her disabled son have sex for the first time.

Can Have Sex, Will Have Sex features John, 26, who has learning difficulties, and whose mother decides to hire some “help” for him to lose his virginity.

The programme focuses on the sex lives of four disabled individuals including John, cerebral palsy sufferer Pete, recent paralysis patient Karl and Leah, 24, who has brittle bone disease.

Pete has ambitions to be "the UK's first disabled porn star"; while Leah "won't let her body's limitations get in the way of an adventurous sex life"; and Karl is "coming to terms with life without an erection".

Channel 4 describes the show as “warm, funny and extraordinary in the range and scope of access to people’s very personal stories”.

The film's website says it “explores the different ways disabled people deal with the barriers they can face in trying to fulfil that basic human need - sexual intimacy.”

Channel 4 received a number of complaints last week after it broadcast 40 Year Old Virgins, a documentary in which 45-year-old Clive Dancey and a 28-year-old woman, both of whom claim to have never had sex, went to America for sex therapy.

In it Mr Dancey sees a “sex surrogate” who inspired the character played by Helen Hunt in 2012 film The Sessions.

TV campaigners Mediawatch said the programme bordered on “voyeurism” as it showed Mr Dancey having a sex act performed on him by the therapist, Cheryl Cohen Greene, 68.

Mediawatch spokeswoman Vivienne Patterson said: “Channel 4 have got a history of taking things that are interesting and worth discussing and then unfortunately going further on entertainment side than the educational.”

But a Channel 4 spokesman defended the documentary, and said: “The film is a frank and honest account of two adults as they work with therapists and sex surrogates in the US to address their own intimacy issues.

"The scene where Clive loses his virginity is an integral part of his development and was filmed in a tasteful and respectful manner.”

It has since been claimed by The Sun newspaper that Mr Dancey is an actor.

In 2011 Channel 4 received 300 complaints about series The Joy of Teen Sex.