Channel 4 sparked outrage yesterday after it was revealed it is making a new show which will feature a male virgin being taught how to have sex.

The man, who is aged in his late 20s and has never slept with a woman, will visit a sex school in Amsterdam, where he will spend three months learning "the art of intimacy".

The new show will see the man lose his virginity to a sex therapist and producers of the show are claiming they could even show some footage of the man having sex. :D

The Virgin School, as it has been titled, is part of a series of programmes about virginity lined up for next year, which will also look at the different ways in which people lose their virginity.

A series of programmes about masturbation is also being lined up for next year.

News of the programme comes in the wake of claims by the man who launched Channel 4, that the broadcaster had become fixated with sex and "adolescent transgression".

Jeremy Isaacs, who was the broadcaster's first chief executive when it went on air in 1982, claimed the channel had dumbed down to chase ratings, abandoning much of the quality programming behind its success.

Now a media pressure group has branded plans for the show as "juvenile" and "offensive".

John Beyer, director of Mediawatch UK said: "It beggars belief. It's yet another example of them trying to attract viewers with a programme about sex. It is really time that Channel 4 grew up.

"They are so caught up in their own importance that they really can't see beyond their own quest for sensationalism and controversy."

Channel 4 has been criticised over plans to broadcast a mass public masturbation event as part of a special week of programming on the subject next year.

Former ITV chief executive Charles Allen earlier this year hit out C4's attempts to chase ratings with low-brow programming. He said it had become "risque" instead of "risky" and "brazen" instead of "bold".

It is also understood that there is unease among some Channel 4 board members about the plans for the week of programming around masturbation. The new virgin show could add to these fears.

Deputy chairman David Puttnam, who is being touted for the BBC chairman job, is understood to have concerns about the issue and chairman Luke Johnson has also reportedly been "uneasy" about it.

Aside from the programming around masturbation and virginity, Channel 4 has also come under fire for screening a show featuring pornographic images of nuns and also over a youth programme in which guests were shown a clip of a person and asked to guess which drug they had been taking.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: "Virgin School is a sensitive documentary that follows one young man's effort to overcome a major obstacle in his life.

"The programme focuses on his emotional journey and his growing confidence with women, not the final result. It will be scheduled appropriately in a late night slot"