'Sexpo' Is Instagram's Questionable New Workout Trend
Like fitspo, but more naked.
By on April 25, 2014
A new form of fitspiration is popping up on social media and, like most social media trends, it is sexy, naked, and potentially problematic.
The hashtag #FitSex is ostensibly motivating Instagrammers to hit the gym to improve their sex lives or use sex as a workout, with cheeky text encouragements typical of the fitspo genre overlaid on images of people doing it: Naked bodies pressed against a shower door; a buff couple hooking up in bed; sex in the middle of dimly lit hallway, with a woman pressed against the wall by a muscular guy.
Some of the #FitSex images seem to celebrate sexual experimentation. Others feel more like body-shaming, implying that sex is best enjoyed by a woman with a certain type of figure. This is where the trend goes sour, especially considering the racy images of ripped women are pretty obviously being aimed at women themselves. Women with sexualized (and thin) bodies have always been a staple of the fitspo genre, so, in some ways, the evolution into "sexpo" feels unavoidable, if disturbing.
So far, though, the trend is small: The hashtag turns up only 147 posts on Instagram. (Searches on Tumblr and Pinterest turn up even fewer results.) But the "likes" are in the thousands.Follow Elisa on Twitter.
The hashtag #FitSex is ostensibly motivating Instagrammers to hit the gym to improve their sex lives or use sex as a workout, with cheeky text encouragements typical of the fitspo genre overlaid on images of people doing it: Naked bodies pressed against a shower door; a buff couple hooking up in bed; sex in the middle of dimly lit hallway, with a woman pressed against the wall by a muscular guy.
Some of the #FitSex images seem to celebrate sexual experimentation. Others feel more like body-shaming, implying that sex is best enjoyed by a woman with a certain type of figure. This is where the trend goes sour, especially considering the racy images of ripped women are pretty obviously being aimed at women themselves. Women with sexualized (and thin) bodies have always been a staple of the fitspo genre, so, in some ways, the evolution into "sexpo" feels unavoidable, if disturbing.
So far, though, the trend is small: The hashtag turns up only 147 posts on Instagram. (Searches on Tumblr and Pinterest turn up even fewer results.) But the "likes" are in the thousands.Follow Elisa on Twitter.
Photo credit: Gallery Stock
Originally published by Cosmopolitan
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