No Sex Please, We Are British!

No sex in the sauna, please, we're British ...



... but the Germans are not so shy!



By Matheus Sanchez

Two versions of advert reveal steamy cover-up

You know those Teutonic types - first to put the towel on the sun lounger and the first to whip it off in the sauna.

We Brits, on the other hand, are altogether more reserved when it comes to making a display of ourselves in a steam room. Or so these two advertisements would have us believe.

The two photographs promoting a cruise by Ocean Village are identical in all but one respect.

In the version used in Germany, the lithe young bodies in the sauna are as naked as the day they came into the worls. A strategically placed towel barely covers their modesty. But in the version of the brochure in this country, a crucial change has been made.

A bikini and a swimming costume have been added by computer wizarrdry.

Why British readers have to be protected from this sort of thing is something a mystery. Gill Haynes, head of marketing for Ocean Village, said:"We're all Europeans now but when it comes to saunas, many British feel more confortable if they keep some of their kit o."

The photo is in a brochure by Ocean Village's German sister company Aida.

Ms Haynes said that in this country the cruises are being marketed at people who have never been on one before and it wouldn't do to put them off with the thought of so much flesh on display. Whether nudity will be banned from the saunas when the ship sail in the summer next year has yet to be decided.

Ms Hayes siad the company would cater for "what makes British people happy".

"We're happy to go with the flow of this one," she said.

Ocean Village's slogan is: "The cruise for people who don't do cruises."

Maybe it should be: "The sauna for people who don't do nudity."