A couple days ago, disgusted (as everyone should be) with the TSA’s current policy of sexual abuse at the screening stations (your choice: nude photos or sexual assault), I tweeted this:
After this http://djwudi.com/4fk and similar, I’m almost disappointed I’m not flying soon. I’d wear my kilt. Commando. Grope away, sucker!
It seems I’m not the only one who’s had this idea….
From TSA Opt-Out Day, Now with a Superfantastic New Twist! – Jeffrey Goldberg – National – The Atlantic:
It’s a one-word idea: Kilts. Think about it — if you’re a male, and you want to bollix-up the nonsensical airport security-industrial complex, one way to do so would be to wear a kilt. If nothing else, this will cause TSA employees to throw up their hands in disgust. If you want to go the extra extra mile, I suggest commando-style kilt-wearing. While it is probably illegal to fly without pants, I can’t imagine that it’s illegal to fly without underpants. I If you are Scottish, or part Scottish, or know someone who is Scottish, or eat Scottish salmon, or enjoy Scotch, or have a vestigial affection for “Braveheart” despite Mel Gibson, you can plausibly claim some sort of multicultural diversity privilege — the term “True Scotsman” refers to soldiers who honor their tradition and heritage by wearing kilts without drawers underneath.
For the record, I always fly wearing a Utilikilt, and as with any time I wear a kilt, unless there’s some situation that demands otherwise, I generally do go commando. Hey, it’s comfortable, and under normal circumstances, there’s little to no likelihood that anyone’s going to be seeing anything they don’t want to. It’s never been a problem — quite the opposite, in fact, I usually just breeze through the metal detectors.
This past summer, though, as I was flying up to Anchorage from Seattle, I was pulled aside after going through the metal detector for a patdown. I was surprised, especially when the TSA screener told be that I was pulled aside specifically because I wore the kilt. My best guess is that because they can’t eyeball the shape of your upper legs as easily as when wearing pants, it’s marginally more likely that I could have something dangerous but non-metallic strapped to my upper/inner thigh. If that was the reasoning (they didn’t say), it does make me wonder if they regularly pull women wearing skirts aside for the extra pat-down, or if they reserve that treatment for men in skirts. Obviously, weirdos like us are far more likely to be dangerous.
The pat-down itself was about what I’d expect of a normal pat-down — thorough enough, with a quick run of the hands up my legs and under the kilt, but not so thorough that the screener knew whether or not I was commando. No fondling was involved, though there was a cursory brush-down of the front of the kilt that jostled things around a bit. A bit surprising, but at the time, I just shrugged it off.
No more of that, though. While I’m not flying anytime soon, if all of this ridiculousness is still going on when I do have to fly somewhere, I’m definitely opting out, and they just better do their jobs. If they’re determined to sexually assault me, then I’m at least going to get my money’s worth!
(via @jackwilliambell‘s retweet of @furf; image via BoingBoing via Oleg Volk)
