At a point in everyone’s life, there’s a chance that one will encounter a friend or frenemy or colleague or chat bot who says things like, “I have sexual intercourse with alarming frequency; I do all the sex things every which way in every nook and cranny (of my house but that also means body orifices). The point of this anecdote is that I don’t need to go to the gym any more because of sexercise, which is a clever little term I made up right after reaching the blinding clarity of orgasm.” To anyone who utters a similar sentiment, you can no respond, “I’m sorry, my sweet little humble-bragger, but that’s really not true.”
Sex isn’t that great of exercise, it turns out. According to a study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine, sex, on average, lasts six minutes and burns only 21 calories. Thirty minutes of sex burns only 85 – 100 calories. Damn. You’re going to have to do a lot more work if you smugly canceled your gym membership already but still want to work off those pre-coital Waffle Tacos.
Fortunately for all of us, CNN has some weight-burning sex tips! Here’s one that has the bonus of making you evacuate your bowels with horror and profound sadness when you read it:
Core-gasm. Engage your core at all times while having sex. Focusing on your core and isolating the muscles around your pelvic floor will not only strengthen your six-pack, it’ll make your tummy look flatter in the moment.
You heard it here first, ladies: try doing push-ups onto a genital for a flatter tummy.
With this cool tip in mind, I’ve crafted my own Sexercise Routines for general perusal:
- Try some Zumba-inspired sex. This is a lot like normal sex, but you put on a remix of “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira and do leg-lifts and some general wiggling. Also, lots of over-head claps and sporadic whoops and phrases such as “feel the burn!” (this has the added bonus of being really encouraging for your partner).
- Normally, about halfway through yoga class, I just curl into fetal position and hope that everyone forgets about me. But that won’t do when you are sexercising — if Naked Breastfeeding Yoga Mom can breastfeed in a handstand, then you can probably have sex doing that, too. Core strength! I’m gonna say “core-gasm” one more time, just in case you obliterated it from your memory.
- Have an orgy with your CrossFit class.
- This picture that came up when I Googled “pilates” sort of speaks for itself.
- Form protein powder into little disks and turn it into edible underwear. Core-play! (That one’s not the best pun in the world, but we can’t all be “core-gasm.”)
- Do what the Prancercise lady did and invite John Mayer to be part of your workout.
- Take turns bench-pressing a flat surface with another couple having sex on top of it.
- Turn your hot office fantasy into a psychosexual nightmare loosely based off of the movie Speed starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, by having sex on a treadmill desk. Get ready for rush hour.
Here I thought sex was supposed to be a fun and carefree activity during which you flop around on a surface with 1+ partner(s) like so many flesh-toned fish dredged up by a gentle sea captain. But seriously — is there really any need to bring body anxiety and/or a fitness agenda into every aspect of human existence? Shouldn’t it be possible to merely enjoy our bodies without worrying what they look like?
I’m all for exercise, seeing as it might be the fabled fountain of youth, capable of turning you into Benjamin Button with excellent muscle tone — but I staunchly believe that calorie-conscious sex is a fool’s errand. It’s the grown-up equivalent of when your parent bakes broccoli into your brownies in the desperate hope that you’ll mistakenly ingest a morsel with nutritious value, which is a deviously sneaky act.
Image via Andresr/ Shutterstock.