{"id":9126,"date":"2010-11-17T09:26:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T17:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=9126"},"modified":"2019-12-23T15:15:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T23:15:24","slug":"fly-commando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2010\/11\/17\/fly-commando\/","title":{"rendered":"Fly Commando!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TSA A couple days ago, disgusted (as everyone<\/a> should<\/a> be<\/a>) with the TSA’s current policy of sexual abuse at the screening stations (your choice: nude photos<\/a> or sexual assault<\/a>), I tweeted this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n After this http:\/\/djwudi.com\/4fk<\/a> and similar, I\u2019m almost disappointed I\u2019m not flying soon. I\u2019d wear my kilt. Commando<\/em>. Grope away, sucker!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems I’m not the only one who’s had this idea….<\/p>\n

From TSA Opt-Out Day, Now with a Superfantastic New Twist! – Jeffrey Goldberg – National – The Atlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n 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.\u00a0 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.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the record, I always<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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!<\/p>\n

(via @jackwilliambell<\/a><\/em>‘s retweet of @furf<\/a><\/em>; image via BoingBoing<\/a><\/em> via Oleg Volk<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m almost disappointed I\u2019m not flying soon. I\u2019d wear my kilt. Commando. Grope away, sucker!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2043],"tags":[6,14,573],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}