@lebernards (instagram.com/lebernards)
@lebernards (instagram.com/lebernards)

Opinions are divided on the latest craze to hit photo sharing website Instagram last week.

In #aftersexselfies couples post photographs of themselves, or "selfies", just after having sex.

For some, aftersex selfies are an antidote to an online culture in which explicit images are everywhere, yet depictions of real intimacy rare.

Harriet Walker wrote in the Guardian: "What's striking is that the pictures uploaded aren't poised snapshots of a couple sparking up a shared fag in an artfully rumpled bed, or of tangled naked limbs. This isn't the sort of cliched aftermath imagery we're inured to.

"They are real couples looking a bit flushed, glasses askew and grinning, having just had a great time. And for this reason, they feel even more deviant than the grottiest stuff you can dig up online."

For critics though, aftersex selfies are the ultimate example of narcissism in a culture in which people are keen to share every aspect of their lives before a web audience, shedding whatever privacy remains.

In the Sunday Times, Katy Glass writes, "It is used by smug, gorgeous, twentysomething couples to post dreamy post-coital selfies of themselves lying in each other's arms on crumpled bedsheets, hair artfully styles, makeup not even smudged.

"Was there ever a more self-indulgent way to tell the world how great your life is?"

Below, IBTimes UK looks at some of the images that have caused such a stir.

@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@lebernards (instagram.com/lebernards)
*
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
 
@aftersexselfies (instagram.com/aftersexselfies)
@lebernards (instagram.com/lebernards)