What are you doing this weekend? Going for a long walk? Running a 10k? Rigorously mowing the lawn? Forget it. The days of hot yoga and clean-eating may be at an end.
One of the internet’s biggest pornography websites, Pornhub, has taken an interest in your fitness and introduced “Bangfit”, which does exactly what it says on the tin.
It already got in touch with its caring side by doing “a lot of good work for charity”. In 2014, Pornhub sent a “Boob Bus” around New York City offering free breast examinations. Before that, its “Save the Boobs” event gave a penny for every 30 videos viewed in Pornhub’s “big tit” or “small tit” category in the month of October to the US’s biggest breast cancer research foundation. You really can’t say they don’t care.
They describe Bangfit as “the fitness method gyms don’t want you to know about”. It is an interactive game that involves, it says, “sexercising for points”.
Never ones to let the opportunity for a cheeky double entendre to pass, Pornhub says that the regime allows players “to score – in every sense of the word”.
And never letting an opportunity to monetise its online largesse slip through its sticky fingers, Pornhub now sells its “Bangfit belt” online.
The belt is out of stock at the moment, but when you do get hold of it, you will be able to strap your synchronised smartphone to your hips before accessing suggested sexercise games and measuring, recording – even sharing with your friends – the amount of calories you have burned during sexy time. Your mother is going to be so proud.
Bangfit is available for one, two or even three players, so whether you are flying solo or on the cusp of applying for a celebrity injunction, your points can win you bragging prizes.
Pornhub says it will show videos that feature basic positions as well as more acrobatic and athletic ones such as the “Squat and Thrust” and “Missionary Press”. Your exertions will then be monitored via the “accelerometer” and gyroscope technology within your smartphone. Easy.
The app also lets people know how many calories they have burned by the time they put their trousers back on. And you also get marks for your performance too.
“Today, due to our hectic work schedules and lack of motivation, many of us do not receive regular amounts of physical activity and lead sedentary lifestyles,” says Corey Price, vice president of Pornhub, who always seems to have our best interests at heart.
“Here at Pornhub, we know from experience that there’s one activity people are always motivated to do and one for which they are never too busy. That’s why we came up with Bangfit, which gamifies sex and encourages users to pump while they hump.”
Pornhub now have another reason to welcome visitors through their digital door. But is having sex really an alternative to aerobic exercise?
It has proven difficult for researchers to measure the effects of sex on different health outcomes in a standardised way and most research has concerned heterosexual sex.
Claims have been made, though, that sex reduces heart disease, diabetes and improves sleep. And sex may also reduce pain, so that’s the “not tonight dear, I’ve got a headache” argument out the window.
Sex is just good for you and a partner is surplus to requirements. A 1986 paper found that older men and women who masturbated had reduced rates of depression. So, a partner is not always required.
And it might also help you live longer – a British Medical Journal study in south Wales followed 918 men aged between 49 and 59 for 10 years and found that those who had been having two or more orgasms a week had 50 per cent lower mortality rates. The study’s authors cited other research suggesting that quality of sex is important in realising health benefits. So it’s not just about going for the burn, then.
But another study published in US journal Plos showed that sex uses only a few calories - the treadmill uses about three times as many.
Sex is rated as moderately intense exercise, and uses up 4.2 calories a minute in men and 3.1 calories in women. The survey of young couples found that sex took on average 24.7 minutes, with men using up 101 calories and women using 70.
Almost everyone involved in the study reported that sex was more enjoyable than the treadmill, so maybe Pornhub’s “Bangfit” will scratch an itch. If you’re not already scratching it, that is.
