The Sessions (originally titled The Surrogate) is a 2012 American independent drama film written and directed by Ben Lewin. It is based on the article "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate" by Mark O'Brien, a poet paralyzed from the neck down due to polio, who hired a sex surrogate to lose his virginity. John Hawkes and Helen Hunt star as O'Brien and sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene, respectively.