The big teasy

Lock up your mothers and break out the Cava, Playgirl is coming to the UK. Finally, the women and gay men of Britain will be able to get their hands on the world's most famous porn title. But don't get your hopes (or anything else) up - a few 'tweaks' have been made to the format in its transition from across the pond.

Unlike its stateside counterpart, the UK edition will not be featuring any 'below-the-belt' nudity. Extensive research into the magazine's prospective readership has unearthed the shocking fact that women "do not want to see nudity and prefer to see a man’s eyes and chest". That explains the huge queues of horny women constantly bustling outside Specsavers.

Instead, Playgirl UK will only feature men topless from the waist-up. But we have that already - it's called Heat. Rather than providing sex-starved readers with handy fapping material, the magazine will offer entertainment news and columnists, beauty and fashion, and photography by Central St Martins graduates. Just like every other women's title then.

The original Playgirl was launched in 1973 as a 'feminist' response to the runaway success of Playboy magazine - implying that women are just as capable of objectifying the opposite sex as men. It's been a running joke for years that Playboy's readers only pick up the magazine for the 'articles' and not the fact that it's full of gravity-defying breasts and more fake blonde hair than Dolly Parton's wig room.

However, the publishers of Playgirl UK have decided that when women say they're only interested in the articles, they really mean it. The launch issue will be hitting magazine racks (not the top shelf, presumably) on March 10th in what's being aptly described as a 'soft launch'. Flaccid might be more appropriate.

Since conservative estimates suggest that 50% of Playgirl's readership is gay men, this new approach is unlikely to be a roaring success. Having endured the ridiculous 'Mull of Kintyre' rule for decades, we like our filth to be a little more, well, filthy. It's about as fulfilling as trying to build a music collection out of 30-second iTunes snippets.