ESPN’s Live Nude Athletes

ESPN's much ballyhooed Body Issue hits newsstands this Friday—and as part of its relentless PR juggernaut, four of the six covers and a preview gallery have already appeared online.

As promised, the issue features both male and female athletes—though from the looks of things the ladies are decidedly more nude than the mens: Adrian Peterson's cover doesn't even show off his chest! And he's wearing pants! At least Gina Carano is brave enough to bare a bit of underboob.

We won't know for sure until Friday, but we're going to go out on a limb here and say that ESPN's Body Issue is probably a fail for actual nudity—but a win for showing that male and female athletes have the kind of muscles we can only dream about while drowning our sorrows in cheesecake. And hey, if we're going to be titrolled by famous ladies, it's nice to be titrolled by a different sort—and not just the same old heavily photoshopped, stick thin bodies paraded before us day after day.

· Body Issue Preview Gallery (sports.espn.go.com)
· ESPN's 'Body Issue' Of Naked Athletes: Serena Williams, Dwight Howard, Adrian Peterson, More Pose Nude (huffingtonpost.com)
· That's one hell of a shot, Serena! Tennis champ courts attention with a nude magazine cover (dailymail.co.uk)