The Rise of Fitness Porn

Fat Girl sits on a bike.
Phone in her palm.
Thumb is bussy sliding to the right.
That's the only effort she does.
Legs, as forgotten children, do some hectic spins from time to time.
I walk by and accidentally glance at her phone - she's in IG.
Sliding slim and sexy fitness models she follows, as if it's Tinder...

Slim dude is frozen on an Incline bench.

Dumbbells are at his side, patiently waiting to be picked up and done something.

He's in his phone.

Intense, as someone who prepares to break his Squat PR.

Eyes still.

I walk by and accidentally glance at his phone - he's in IG.

Watching some pharmacologically enhanced dude does the "Best Chest Exercises for Massive Growth"

These aren't fruits of my morning-coffee imagination but real people observed in my gym.
Somehow, I'm sure that you've seen it them your gym too.

They are never satisfied with "one flick" and sliding for more - and the more they slide, the less satisfied they are.
More booty, more abs, more programming, more secret technique, more free stuff, more "motivation", more! more! more!
Meanwhile, they stay the same.
Any beginnings, of REAL training, are so far from the "reality" their mind is overloaded with, that they quit before your first set...

Welcome to the Fitness Porn reality.
They "masturbate" on other people's realities, wishing that one day it's going to be them!

No hidden folders or favorite tabs on a computer. No dark rooms. No hiding.

That one is available on "open space".

By the way, there's a more disturbing field of Success Porn, that is even more devastating on human lives, yet it deserves its own article, so we let it be for now.

Etymology:

[1] The word pornography was coined from the ancient Greek words πόρνη (pórnē "prostitute" and πορνεία porneía "prostitution"^[16]), and γράφειν (gráphein "to write or to record", derived meaning "illustration", as in "graph"), and the suffix -ία (-ia, meaning "state of", "property of", or "place of"), thus meaning "a written description or illustration of prostitutes or prostitution". 

[2] Prostitute is derived from the Latin prostituta. Some sources cite the verb as a composition of "pro" meaning "up front" or "forward" and "stituere", defined as "to offer up for sale".^[14] Another explanation is that prostituta is a composition of pro and statuere (to cause to stand, to station, place erect). A literal translation therefore is: "to put up front for sale" or "to place forward". The Online Etymology Dictionary states, "The notion of 'sex for hire' is not inherent in the etymology, which rather suggests one 'exposed to lust' or sex 'indiscriminately offered.'"^[15][16]

~ Wikipedia

Note: that in origin, "prostitution" has no relation to sex but to an exhibition of. And the "exhibition" is exactly what SM influencers are doing.

Allow me to skip the history of Strength Training and Bodybuilding (it deserves its own post, but it already has too many of them) and begin with the One and Only, the Greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Arnold was the "Last of the Mohicans", along with his buddy Franco Columbu RIP, who was ALSO STRONG and came out of the Old School of Strength, prior to focusing on aesthetics. In Ronnie Coleman's case, for example, it already shifted towards big weights for big muscle. Arnold, single-handed, build from scratch a culture of Aesthetic over Functionality. Whether it was intentional or not, is irrelevant in our case. What does, is that LOOKS IS MUCH EASIER TO SELL THAN PERFORMANCE! By performance, I mean day-to-day functionality rather than competitive outcomes. Arnold wasn't the first, yet he was the most significant to lay the foundation of the "Peacock Tail" analogy for the Action and Superheroes and eventually the successful alike. He also created an industry called "Fitness Industry" today, dividing Bodybuilding from "Aerobics" (Jane Fonda style) that eventually split what used to be whole - Integrative Human Abilities - into smithereens of "Fitness Styles": Aerobics, Tone, Shape, Bodybuilding, etc that OUTLOOK was the SINGLE most significant characteristic! Ironically, Powerlifting became a niche of its own. Who wants to look "fat" like these guys? It's not sexy. True, as it may sound, it missed BIG the point, that these big and "fat" dudes, were pretty much the last functional athletes who knew more about health, human performance, and injury prevention than most out there. Let's leave the drugs out for the argument's sake. Drugs are used by those who chase the trophies from dawn till this very day and on. Yet, it wasn't Arnold who drove the last spike in the coffin of Physical Culture, it was the World Wide Web - WWW - aka the Internet, namely the Social Media who spilled fule into the embers of Fitness Pornography making it a raging wildfire that it is today.

But, why? That's a good question we ought to dig deeper into. Before the FB & IG invasion, there were Actress and Actresses. They were people of the profession. It was their job to look good, act well, etc. It was "them" and us. There was a Hollywood reality and my own, private one. I watched movies. I got motivated. I began to train to "look like". Yet, I knew that Arnold is there and I am here! This exact difference was the borderline between the two worlds - Arnold motivated a lot of people and drove them into gyms to pump iron. By the way, porn used to be the same. There was man and woman of the profession. They were "there" and I am "here". You watch (one cassette at the time, if you remember the technology) and... went to your wife / girlfriend trying and hoping to "look like".

Then came SM turned the tables around, and the wall that kept the two worlds apart fell!

But unlike the Berlin Wall, it wasn't for the good.

If previously, it was "other and distant" people, that had no correlation to your life who did it, now it was YOUR neighbors and classmates that lived the "dream", looked like and fucked like!

Wait! What about you?

What does it say about YOUR life? I believe you guessed already - nothing shiny nor positive. While people that you know, see, and "can touch" (unlike Arnold and company) are cruising the world, making money, partying hard, and having sex you never ever seen - YOU are working from 09 to 17, living with that "old hag" of yours and your life resemble an old joke that goes:

"Man sitting alone in the dark living room, masturbating and drinking soda, saying: "Oh! Woman and Champagne!" 

That's hurts!

Badly. Deeply.

And yet worse, it creates cognitive dissonance you can't escape.

SM allowed EVERYBODY to become a Hollywood (and porn) Star!

Everybody but you!

So the fat girl on the fitness bike and the slim dude on an incline bench are stuck in the vicious circle of self-punishment, unconsciously sliding the videos and pictures of those who (else) made it...

However, this is not the bottom of the pit.

The poor fat girl and slim boy are peeping after - "following" it called these days - people that train and do things COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and UNRELATED to them, their body and needs!

Are you a SWAT, NFL, NHL, Firefighter, NAVY SEAL, etc?

No?

Have you ever considered what YOUR body needs? 

No?

If so, why do you think training like one?.. 

Where does this variety perversion come from?

Oh, sorry, that's what "motivates" you. 

And that's the reason your feed is filled with "these guys".

I see.

That's what Fitness Porn is all about.

Have you ever thought about that?

I wrote this piece not to give nor advise you of some miracle solution.

Most of us know what it is.

It's just that we don't want to follow our own knowledge.

Why be nice to your wife and revive the passion, if in your browser there's an "A Chearleadrs first time 12" is waiting for you...

Oh! Woman and Champagne!