[Many women] “are furious about recent changes in airport security that have increased both the number and the intensity of pat-downs at the nation’s 450 commercial airports. And they are not keeping quiet. In dozens of interviews, women across the country say they were humiliated by the searches, often done in view of other passengers, and many said they had sharply reduced their air travel as a result. The new security policies on body searches were put into practice in mid-September, after a terrorist attack in Russia a few weeks before that destroyed two planes, killing 90 people. Two Chechen women were thought to have carried nonmetallic explosives onto the planes, officials said.” —New York Times (US)

Talk about a tempest in a teapot. Just recently PervScan pointed to an article in which a Stanford student complained about airline screeners checking her bra. Now the story is hitting the bigtime airwaves, even though there are in fact a very small number of actual complaints about invasive pat-downs. The author of this NYT article suggests that there are probably many women keeping quiet about the humiliating searches. But is it because the searches are really so unethical? Or is it because most women recognize that, even if it makes them uncomfortable, there are good grounds for conducting such searches?

After all, there are well-defined rules governing how the searches are conducted. Airline passengers have the right to request a private area for being searched, and women can also request female inspectors. In no case is a woman ever obliged to be searched by a man. However, if a female screener is unavailable, a woman can choose to allow a male screener to pat her down. In this case, the male screener must abide by certain rules, such as using the back of his hand to pat down sensitive areas. And the woman always retains the right to wait for a female screener, although this may make her miss her plane. But if you feel like you’re getting raped when a male screener rubs his hand across the underwire of your bra, then what’s the big deal about waiting? Which is worse — missing a flight? Or getting molested?

Accompanying the article are two pictures. One shows a female screener patting down the back of somebody’s grandmother — hardly controversial. The other shows the singer Patti LuPone, who’s horror story amounted to the fact that a female screener asked her to remove her shirt, thus revealing a see-through camisole underneath. Then the female screener, Ms. LuPone claimed, “was all over me with her hands.” Well, isn’t that the point of a pat-down? It makes you wonder if Ms. LuPone is flattering herself somewhat, given that it’s been a solid twenty years since anyone would call her a hot chick.

Anyway, you can’t help but think that in the final analysis it boils down to a very simple question. What’s more important: your tits? or your life?

VideoBox

It's like the iTunes Music Store for Porn. Download unlimited high-quality video for only $9.95/month.