• Several YouTube channels have sprung up over the past two months that post clips of naked women practicing yoga.
• Searching "naked yoga" on YouTube brings up a lot of results — all of which seem to be old videos that have been reuploaded by people who didn't make them. 
• The channels seem to get around YouTube's content guidelines by labeling the videos as "educational." Some have disclaimers asking viewers not to report them.
• Warning: this post contains some links to NSFW content. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

"Someone told me to search 'naked yoga' on YouTube and I can't stop laughing," reads an NSFW tweet posted on December 9 by YouTuber Derrick Blackman. It's accompanied with four screenshots from videos that appear after typing the term in YouTube's search bar, all of which have some pretty graphic thumbnails. 

A search on YouTube will bring up many videos of clips of women practicing yoga in the nude. They all appear to be old videos repurposed for YouTube, most likely reuploaded by people who didn't make or film them. There are at least 20 videos posted in the last two months.

YouTube's content policies around nudity and sexual content state "explicit content meant to be sexually gratifying is not allowed on YouTube."

"Posting pornography may result in content removal or channel termination," according to the guidelines on the website. "Videos containing fetish content will be removed or age-restricted. In most cases, violent, graphic or humiliating fetishes are not allowed on YouTube."

The channels dedicated to naked yoga seem to get around these guidelines by labeling the videos as "educational." 

"This is Naked Yoga & It means to health fitness & Education," says one "disclaimer" at the beginning of a video. "No need to take action about Yt Community guildeline policy."

Some of the videos are full yoga classes, while other just contain short, graphic clips

Some channels have names such as Naked Yoga School and Naked Yoga Club and include videos where teachers do genuine yoga. The Naked Yoga School has a real website and yoga class held in New York City, but the YouTube channel is a fake.

"We don't use YouTube, so someone stole our videos," a representive told Insider. "But I'm sure Google will shut down those accounts. We don't waste our time chasing those."

One of the videos on a channel called The Yoga Meditation has 13 million views.

"Naked yoga is pretty much what you think it is," its description reads. "A naked yoga class essentially requires you to strip down in front of a room full of people — who do the same — and perform a myriad of asanas."

However, in many other videos, the practice appears to be secondary to the nudity. One video with a watermark for "flexyteens.com," for example, shows a young woman who bends over a lot and slowly takes all her clothes off.

There are also several thumbnails that show close up photos of genitalia, or snapshots of actual porn films.

A channel called Barbie was one of the only YouTube accounts with naked yoga videos to have an email address associated with it. In response to a few questions about whether they were jumping on a recent trend by uploading such videos, the owner Zee Telugu responded: "Yes, I did."

Legitimate nude yoga does have many benefits, according to Willow Merveille, the founder of the company Naked in Motion. In a video for The Cut in 2018, she and some clients explained how practicing in the nude is not only good exercise but it encourages self-love. 

"The goal is that over time, you see your body more, you see your wrinkles and your rolls and your stretch marks and all the things, so less of a big deal it becomes," Merveille says in the video. "And I think from there, there's nowhere else to go except a place of acceptance and self-kindness."

After publication, a YouTube spokesperson told Insider the platform "has clear policies that outline what content is not acceptable to post and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us."

"We make exceptions for material with sufficient 'EDSA' educational, documentary/news, scientific or artistic value," they said. "The videos that Insider flagged are in violation of our nudity and sexual content policies and have been removed."

• Read more:
• How QAnon infiltrated the yoga world
• The best online yoga workouts
• 4 benefits of Hatha yoga and how it can improve your physical and mental health

Watch: What happens to your brain and body when you do yoga regularly

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