I Got Strip-Searched at the Airport

TSA: Breast-Groping, Pat-Down Searches to Return

The so-called Transportation Safety Administration is threatening the flying public that if you refuse to go though those new see-through-clothing X-ray machines, you'll be sent to ''enhanced'' secondary screening. Agents there are again being allowed to use the palms of their hands to feel up and grope your breasts, buttocks and genital area.

Ever since 9/11/01, female passengers have been routinely humiliated at airports around the world.

We're often told there isn't a female screener available, so we have to stand there as some leering guy puts his hands all over us, while male passengers we'll soon be on the plane with watch while wishing they had that guy's job.

We're forced to remove our bras (or not wear them out of fear) if there's even the smallest amount metal in them (or go to Strip Search Central).

The jacket portion of womens' business and dress suits must come off, depending on the screener you encounter, even if we're left standing there in full view of other passengers with only a bra on from the waist up - as has happened to my best friend more than once.

And God help those who wear body-piercings!

If we protest, it's off to ''secondary screening'' for a much more 'intimate' pat-down or to Strip Search Central, which in some airports might be nothing more than a flimsy, half-transparent, badly-named 'privacy screen' right there in the middle of the terminal in plain view. Such screens do not always fully conceal the person undressing, might be underneath overhead security cameras on in some cases be merely angled against one part of the wall with some false hope that fellow travelers might not turn their heads as they walk past. One large U.S. airport used a public stairway; another used a security supervisor's office. Then again, as one man found out, an airport in Germany used nothing at all. His pants came down in front of everyone - flight attendants, fellow passengers and other passers-by. I know exactly how he felt like.

I'll concede some travelers - and I include myself in that bunch - make some poor choices in clothing in retrospect. In July 2008, while traveling with three girlfriends overseas, we were late for our flight and would have missed it had we waited to be screened by a female security officer or for private, full strip-search screenings (I must say, both options were offered instead of a very public half-undressed, pat-down).

Because of a scheduling mix-up, we didn't realize we were to fly out that particular day to another part of our trip and two of us rushed back from some shopping down at a nearby beach. I was wearing shorts, a slinky halter and a complimenting bikini top with a ring accent. My friend Ashley had on shorts and a tube top. My two other girlfriends were dressed, ready and waiting outside our hotel by the time we got back, having rushed and packed our suitcases for us along with their own.

But at the airport, because of our tardiness and some weather and also some security-related issues, it look a while at the check-in point. The terminal isn't crowded at this busy but small airport, but it was certainly understaffed, or at least it seemed to be.

My first problem was that the ring accent on my bikini top was metal. Bing-bing-bing! I was told I'd have to go to secondary screening.

Then I glanced over to my friend, Libby. She's already over in secondary screening. Her jacket is off and she's standing there blushing and grimacing, arms outstretched, in plain view of several dozen people in her short skirt but with nothing on above her waist except her bra! The security guard is giving her the full pat-down treatment, just the same. He feels underneath her breasts through her bra and then pats her down on her skirt, including her buttocks and then runs the wand and then a hand up the inside part of each leg underneath her skirt, causing her to flinch when he obviously could go no higher.

After seeing that, I wanted to certainly avoid secondary screening so I offered to take off the offending object - my bikini top - and handed it to another security guard who put it on the belt to go through the scanners, along with my carry-on. I was quite uncomfortable standing there with nothing on underneath the slinky halter I had on, but I figured OK, let me just go through the scanner again and off to the plane with my friends.

So I walked through again and bing-bing-bing! Now, "What the fuck!?" I thought to myself.

Oh, crap! Then I remembered, my shorts!

I was wearing a pair of Dorinha shorts with a chromed buckle belt. Clearly impatient with me, the male officer ordered me over to secondary screening. The secondary screening security guy (who was in his perhaps late 30s or early 40's), tells me I can either wait for the female screener on duty (who has a long line of about ten women waiting for her) or let him wand and pat me down.

I knew it was either let him do it or we'd miss our flight. Libby was now putting on her jacket and my two other girlfriends said they'd meet her and me at the gate. So I bit my lip, determined to say nothing derogatory to this next guard, endure it and get it over with.

So I outstretched my arms, which only caused my halter top to open further in the front between my breasts. Then he then gives me the full pat-down. I swear he grinned when he cupped his hands underneath my boobs, seemingly moving the fabric of my halter enough to get a peek at my nipples.

Then he ran the wand over my shorts, which of course made the wand beep. He then told me I'd have wait for a strip-search by the female officer. I protested, saying we'd miss our flight for sure now. I tried to reason with him, that it was the metal buckle which caused the wand to beep. But he said it's either that I move over to the strip-search line or I'd have to unbutton them. I was aghast, but as I looked at Libby, who was pointing furiously at her watch, I reluctantly nodded. He then motioned me over to a side wall about ten feet away, still in view of some passing passengers but which partially shielded me from passers-by coming in the other direction behind a luggage cart and from the main security line by a flimsy privacy screen that was between 4-5 feet in height and open to the floor below my knee level. However, the space between the luggage cart and the screen was a good ten feet apart with nothing shielding me from anyone who might walk past.

As I blushed, I reluctantly unbuttoned my shorts in the front. Then he tells me to lower them! At first I thought maybe he just wants to see there's nothing hidden between my shorts and panties. But after I lowered them a couple of inches, he says ''Senora, lower them, por favor'', pointing to my feet.

I protested, saying I shouldn't have to do that in front of him. He says he understood and asked that perhaps I'd rather wait in line for the female security guard to give me a full strip-search. I glanced over there and saw a bare-shouldered young woman placing her bra on top of the privacy screen. Knowing that a full strip-search would cause us to miss our flight, I grimaced, closed my eyes and did as I was told, letting my shorts fall to the floor as I slide them down off my hips.

He then wanded me over my panties and then patted me down there, front and back, before asking me to step out of my shorts entirely. At this point had he told me to drop my panties, I would have complied. In fact, I was half-expected such a demand and had put my fingers inside the waistband of my panties to get it over with.

But then the guard picked up my shorts, looked inside them, wanded them again over the belt buckle, handed them back to me, and told me I was free to go - but not before looking me up and down one last time, smiling but apologizing for the delay before he walked away.

When he walked away I turned and then became aware of several people standing nearby behind me, including a couple of teenage boys looking at me, grinning. One was looking at a cell phone, showing it to his friend, then glancing back up at me, speaking in Norwegian or Swedish. I wanted to yell at them, wanted to cry too, but Libby walked over to me, put her hand on my shoulder and whispered, ''I know. He took some of me, too. But we need to go... now!''

After I put my shorts back on and pulled them up, I grabbed my carry-on off the security belt, but my bikini top was gone! I hoped that one of my other two girlfriends had gotten it (turned out they hadn't).

As we made our way to the gate we passed where the female security screener was doing a strip-search of a young woman about my age. This all seemed like some sort of makeshift arrangement for the day, possibly because of whatever security issue was going on that day. Our eyes met and she blushed, looking down and away in embarrassment. She was behind two 'privacy screens'' in the form of a triangle against the wall and which were barely as high as her shoulders. The bottom portion of the screens, which were on metal legs, were about two feet off the ground. The female officer was holding the woman's undergarments and her dress. The officer then moved the screens apart from the other enough to enter the space, briefly exposing the fully nude woman before sliding the screens mostly back together, but not completely. I could see a male security officer standing nearby, positioned obviously to afford himself a view ever time those screens were moved.

Libby and I then ran to the gate and we all just made our flight. Our seats got screwed up, though, and I ended up in a window seat, next to a young boy of about five or six-years old and his mother. The woman kept shooting me disapproving looks because of how I was dressed. Midway through the flight when the flight attendants served us beverages, the little brat ended up spilling his, landing pop right between my legs. Then, when I practically had to climb over them to get to the aisle to use the bathroom, the boy grabbed one side of my halter top and pulled on it, exposing my breasts briefly. As I walked to and from the bathroom, I had to deal with the smirks and stares that were obviously thinking, 'Did she wet herself?'

Yes, I know I can only blame myself for my embarrassment. It was all because of my choice to accept an unpleasant alternative to otherwise surely missing my flight by waiting for the female security officer to do what likely would have been a full strip-search behind those semi-private screens.

But women shouldn't have to choose between strip-searches, half-undressing in public, getting groped by male security officers and making their flights on time.

Surely there must be a better way to secure our airplanes without undue embarrassment, both for women and men. So-called sniffer boxes are expensive, but could work. Hiring more security personnel, especially female officers, would also help.

When a strip-search has to be done, it should be done in a private room, not being curtains where other people can see that you've taken all your clothes off. But I also realize that not all countries can afford the expense.

So in the meantime, our limited choices seem to be either not fly at all or to simply grin and bare it.