Controversial Platypus

The editorial team at Bare Platypus thinks it’s time we broke the ice with an editorial that’s controversial.  Write the unexpected. Challenge mindsets. Brave new territory. How’s this? 

Clothes Kill!

You read that one correctly.  Clothes can kill.  Maybe they don’t pick up a gun and aim it at helpless victims, but they are responsible (or could be) for needless deaths.

Let’s start with a study that was done by the Department of the Army concerning preparedness for chemical attacks.  According to that study, the single most effective way to reduce the effects of exposure to chemical agents was removal of all clothing. 

In fact, among the three most critical messages that experts strove to communicate was that “Disrobing IS decontamination.”  Disrobe as much as possible after exposure to chemical weapons and your chances of survival increase considerably.  Read it for yourself at:

Army Decontamination

Guess what? In repeated tests, observers found that subjects' privacy concerns outweighed health concerns. Put another way, most subjects would rather die than be caught naked in public.  That’s why the experts in the study cited above listed numerous ways of dealing with the body anxiety issues that get in the way of first responders trying to save lives:

• “let them strip down to underwear [though removal of all clothing is best]” 
• "Responders should set up privacy curtains almost as soon as the life-saving water rinse from firehoses [because];"
• "People are more willing to shower if provided this privacy."

Does any of this strike you as a bit silly?  We’re so privacy conscious that we wouldn’t strip and shower in public if it meant saving our lives?  How about the people who die each year because they don’t want to talk to their health provider about their breasts? Or men who put off prostate screenings because…. Well…. Someone would touch them "there."

Bare Platypus thinks it’s time for common sense to trump prude, archaic notions.  How’s that for controversial?