If there’s one thing it’s difficult to admit to being bad at, it’s sex.

Hobart born and Melbourne-based comedian Luke McGregor felt crippled by his lack of sexual experience. Was he doing it right? Was he a good kisser? How could he let go in the bedroom when he hated taking his clothes off? And having had only a few real life sexual experiences (including losing his virginity at 25), how could he learn more?

In Luke Warm Sex, a six-part ABC documentary starting on Wednesday, the 33-year-old tackles his fears and ignorance of sex. For much of the time on camera McGregor looks terrified. His fear and his vulnerability are real and that makes the documentary feel like an authentic journey.

Brigid Delaney: How did you come to make this series?

Luke McGregor: I was doing stand-up comedy about sex, because I had such little experience with sex in real life. I used to ask the audience: “So how do you guys get better at it? Is it a survey you can do afterwards to see how you can improve?” [Production company] Northern saw the stand-up and wanted to make it into a show.

My biggest fear was that everyone would hate the show and I wouldn’t get any sex afterwards but then I thought: “Well I’m not getting any sex now, so I’ve got nothing to lose.”

There’s so much bravado around sex, but what’s great about the show is that you’re very honest about your ignorance.

I used to pretend that I’d had sex more times than I actually had, or just let people think I’d had more experience and that I knew what I was doing. But I thought if I am going to do this properly I need to be honest.

It’s not uncommon to bluff about sex.

Take kissing. We are meant to know what we are doing and I think everyone is doing it better than me. With any technique, even if you are taught something, everyone is different. In terms of kissing – or anything really – someone might like a different pace or pressure or amount of time. Unless you are communicating and giving each other feedback you are never going to know what each other feels; you are literally feeling around in the dark.

You know your body better than anyone and you have to communicate what you want.

But a lot of people don’t know their bodies. There’s a lot of shame and embarrassment around it. Sex education at some schools goes for about five minutes.

Sex is taught like Lego instructions or Tetris. Here’s how you make a baby and here’s how you avoid disease. But so much about sex is for pleasure; it’s nice to have sex. But I never got a sense of that growing up. Movies and porn fill that gap (of sex education) but they can often be unrealistic.

What porn did you watch?

I was 14 or 15 when I started watching porn online. Before that I found Dad’s magazines under the bed. I don’t know if Mum knew. As soon as I saw porn I thought, OK, size is really important and how hard you thrust is really important. And all these positions that looked really athletic and no pubic hair, which I realised was for camera angles. So I didn’t really learn much that was useful.

We had a guy in the doco who said that the first time he had sex he ejaculated on the girl’s face afterwards because he’d watched porn and thought: “That’s what you do.” Then he saw the horrified look on her face. I couldn’t talk to my parents about [sex], so I was just trying to get information where I could. In my friendship group we were all lying about how much sex we were having and then skip to 25 when I had my first [sexual] experience. I was so nervous.

Were you drunk?

No, it was during the day. It was someone I was friends with who knew I had no experience, so we were friends and building affection towards one another but it was over too quickly, and I was too scared to ask if she found it pleasurable or not. And then I didn’t have sex again for another few years.

What about one-night stands?

I was one of those people who would have loved to have had them, but I was so nervous and sex was such a big deal that I wasn’t able to maintain an erection. I used to pretend to go sleep.

You do a lot of quite confronting things in the doco, like getting naked and touching people.

Because I had so little knowledge of the anatomy, I thought, I would love to know where things are, like when people talk about the G-spot. I didn’t know where the clitoris was. I didn’t know much about my own anatomy, for example, that you can stimulate the prostate. With the doco we ended up approaching it from the fears I wanted to get over: a fear of being nude, a fear of touch. The whole thing was terrifying.

What was the scariest bit?

Being nude in the episode with the naturists. There was a moment in the bedroom by myself trying to take my undies off and I thought: “This is a terrible mistake.” But once I took my clothes off and I went out there my brain just stopped hassling me about it. Nude was the dominant paradigm in the room. Everyone around me was comfortable and so I was comfortable as well.

The hardest part was in the edit suite. People would come in from other productions or cleaners would come in and my penis would just be on the screen. Sometimes the editor would [press] pause and my penis would freeze mid-screen.

You were scared of touching too, right?

When I hold hands with someone I would always be worried if they were enjoying it, and I’d get sweaty hands and worry about it and just not end up enjoying the moment.

So I went to a cuddle party to get used to touch. Everyone is fuelled by other people’s comfort level. Some people who went were like me – they came to get over their issues with touch. Some people were there for companionship. It was a mix. But there are so many classes out there for all kinds of things, with the same mix of people you’d see at a cafe in Brunswick.

I did what was called a “wank bank masterclass”, thinking about different ways to touch your penis or someone else’s penis. That traditional up-down motion isn’t the only way to go about it. Just like someone who teaches you how to massage someone shoulders, so it was with this.

Did you work on an actual penis?

No, a cucumber. It was a guy who used to do happy-ending massage for businessmen, which supported his art. He had really interesting techniques, like in between your fingers. I’d always done quick motions because I didn’t want to be caught by parents or housemates. Go slower and it’s more enjoyable.

Did you do fingering as well?

Yes, we did clitoral stimulation with a little bit of mouth. I practised on an apple. And I did a thing with direct clitoral stimulation in the upper level quadrant with a friend, Chrissie. It wasn’t a big deal with her and we agreed if it got too weird we would leave it. But it was OK. It was fun. We still catch up now.

Have things changed in your sex life since doing the doco?

My main thing that has been great is that I am not scared of it any more. If I get the opportunity to have sex now it’s really fun and I really enjoy sex. I feel like I am connecting more with it. It’s early days that I have started seeing someone and sex is just a fun aspect of the journey. I really love it now, whereas before I used to avoid it at all costs.

How do you feel about your parents seeing the doco?

I’m a little nervous about having family members coming up to me at Christmas and asking me for advice.

• Luke Warm Sex premieres on 16 March at 9pm on the ABC