Naked and Afraid has been a staple for our community of survivalists when it comes to TV entertainment. The challenge itself is meant to be a way to prove your skills in the most primitive and primal fashion possible using only one item each with no food, no water, and no clothes given to the survivalists. This raw and human experience was so good and worked so well because it was never about sex or anything sexual in nature.

The new episode, the kiss, is an abomination for this series. This show was never supposed to be meant as anything sexual. It was supposed to be meant as getting down to absolutely nothing and surviving regardless of your situation. However, every cast member has always been asked the same questions. Does anyone ever hook up? Do the cast ever have sex? Is there any attraction? And the answer to all of this is usually no for so so many reasons. Now after this airs, not only will the cast be asked this question more, but it will be the main focus of why the cast even does the show in the first place. Everyone will stop taking the cast seriously simply because this episode will show that the survivalists do hook up. This might not seem like a big deal until you've completed your 21-day challenge, 40-day challenge, 60 day challenge, etc.

Completing the challenge is a badge of honor. It's something you can remember for the rest of your life and be thankful that you did. You know it's not a joke and you know how hard you had to actually work to complete the challenges. But this just makes a mockery of the hard work that every cast member has put in knowing that doing this challenge was about proving yourself not hooking up with your partners. It's a shame to see something like this and to see that our challenge is going in this direction now for ratings.

This is exactly what this show was not meant to be. This was not supposed to be a dating type show at all this gives everyone who's done the challenge a bad taste in their mouth and is the antithesis of the meaning behind this entire endeavor.

To Discovery channel, this makes the survivalists that have survived the challenge look so bad now. Not only did we put our heart and our time and our effort into a skills derived situation but now it's being shown as the next big dating app which takes away from everything we put into it. Please don't show episodes like this. It makes everything we do seem like it's all for TV instead of any reason otherwise. As survivalists in the real world, Naked and Afraid is a way to not only showcase skills and talents but inspire others to get into the great outdoors and learn the skills that kept our ancestors alive. This isn't something we just do, it's not just a hobby, this is what we love and trading the pureness of what we do on the show for an episode revolving around a hookup is a slap in the face.

We have put everything on the line and do so whole also protecting our reputations. This new Naked and Afraid of Love is going to make us all appear fake which is something we combat daily already.

Please, think of your prior cast members, episodes, challenges, highs, lows, failures and successes before airing this. It makes a mockery of everyone that came before, from Legends to new to the series.

Sincerely,

Your cast members, super fans, and fans.