Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life, in a certain amount of detail. Family members and others who don’t want to read about that stuff will probably want to skip this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

I really wish I’d known about this years ago.

If I had, I would have gotten my ass to the gym long before I finally did.

I wish I’d known it years ago. Which is why I’m telling all y’all. It’s this:

Working out is hot.

I don’t mean that it makes you look hot and attractive: i.e., gives you a firmer body, better posture, a healthier and more attractive appearance generally. It does, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

And I don’t mean that it makes you feel hot and attractive: i.e., increases your libido, gives you better energy, makes you feel more comfortable in your own skin. It does, but that’s not what I’m talking about, either.

I mean that the activity itself is hot. Arousing. Sexually pleasurable.

Or it can be, anyway.

For one thing, if you’re at all into kink, there’s a wonderfully kinky flavor to working out. The weight equipment at the gym especially. The one that forces your legs apart and makes you squeeze them together? The one that puts you on your back with your hands and your chest pinned down? The one that presses your arms back and pushes your tits out? Yum. And there’s a toppy aspect to it, too: a feeling of forcefulness, of power, of pushing against resistance and making it yield.

Even if you’re not into weights, the soreness and endorphin high you get from pushing your physical limits a little bit more each day will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s enjoyed a good spanking. (Although you have to be careful with this — I actually did myself a mild injury from bench pressing too much weight, because it “hurt so good.”)

But it’s not just about kink.

There’s also the whole “being in a room full of healthy, athletic people, many of whom are dressed in skimpy or tight- fitting clothing” thing. Personally, that often doesn’t do much for me: I tend to go into my own little world when I work out, and I don’t usually pay much attention to the other gym patrons. (In fact, I once lost points in the “lust” section of a “seven deadly sins” morality quiz because I didn’t think of the gym as a cruising ground.)

But sometimes, it just can’t be helped. I don’t like to cruise at the gym — if you’re not a gay man, I think it’s kind of rude — but I’ve definitely spent some of my time at the gym pumping my thigh muscles and surreptitiously admiring other people’s… um, tattoos.

But that’s not the main thing.

The main thing is this.

I am:

(a) a person who tends to live in my head, and

(b) a person who tends to be horny.

So anything that pushes me out of my head and into my body will usually get me thinking about sex.

And being at the gym does exactly that. It forces me to pay attention to my body, to feel what’s happening in my flesh and joints and bones. And that almost always gets me turned on. Not in a generalized, “being in touch with my body” way, but in a very specific, immediate, “firm nipples and hard clit” way. It gets me paying close, careful attention to my thighs and my ass, my back and my chest, my hands and my feet.

Which gets me hot.

And which keeps me going back every week.

So consider this a public service announcement. People talk a lot about exercise as a natural anti-depressant… but it’s also a natural aphrodisiac. And I think if more people knew this, a lot more people would be getting their asses to the gym, and keeping them there.

The gym per se might not be for you. I personally find weightlifting to be totally hot, but I’m also a firm believer in the idea that the best exercise is the one that you enjoy and will therefore stick with. So if weights and treadmills don’t do it for you, then try basketball or fencing or synchronized swimming.

But if you’re trying to find inspiration to get more regular exercise, and if you’re also a horny person who lives too much in your head, you might find that this works for you as well. Working out is hot. It doesn’t just make you healthy and energetic; it doesn’t just reduce stress and depression; it doesn’t just improve your sleep. It also turns you on. It gives your body something it loves and is hungry for… and your body pays you back in sexual pleasure.