(From "Clothed and Happy" in Floozy Comes Back.)
Have you seen that show “Naked And Afraid” on the Discovery Channel? It’s a (so-called) reality show where they drop two total strangers—a man and woman—into a harsh wilderness environment with only one item apiece. Neither item is clothing.
You might think this is a recipe for hanky panky or whatever the kids are calling it these days, but after a day or two with the couple being bitten and stung by hordes of hungry insects, sunburning in places the sun really shouldn’t get to, feeling ravenously hungry and desperately thirsty, having their bare skin slashed by vines and plants, limping on feet bleeding from thorns and bruised by rocks—hanky panky is the last thing on their minds. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find the show is sponsored by the Clothing Manufacturers of America after seeing what clothes and shoes protect us from.
Of course, the Discovery Channel blurs what needs to be blurred; you’ve seen more skin at the beach or the lake. And since these are not supermodels, the skin you do see isn’t skin you’d necessarily want to see—if you can follow that.
“Experts” give them a Survival Rating at the start and end of the show. By choosing to participate in such an insane and life-threatening situation, it’s obvious the participants have the survival skills of deranged lemmings and the intelligence to match. I suspect their family trees are more like telephone poles.
There’s a lot of drama as the two discover that they not only have nothing in common with each other, but that they want the other participant dead. And possibly cooked over a slow fire. Because it’s the 10th day and all they have had to eat was a couple of insects and some grass that tasted like...well, grass.
(Read more in the upcoming Floozy Comes Back, copyright 2017 by Stephen B. Bagley. No copying without prior permission from the author and publisher. Thank you for reading.)
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