I too have been sexually assaulted.
I've both had the experience of being inappropriately grabbed without my consent, and I've been raped.
I have read the descriptions of the pat downs by people who have gone through them. Men who describe how their scrotum is cupped and women who describe how the agent rams her hand up into the traveler's crotch with enough force to leave a bruised feeling for the rest of the day. Women who describe how the agent even goes so far as to part the labia, inadvertently or not, during the pat down. Then there's also the running of fingers in between the buttocks and in between the breasts.
The suggestion of using a panty-liner may seem like a good idea, but it didn't work out that way for a woman who wrote;
Now, I don't want this to be about bad TSA agents; they were doing their job, they were as delicate as they could be, etc., etc. But what ultimately happened is that I was subjected to search so invasive that I was left crying and dealing with memories that I thought had been dealt with years ago of prior sexual assaults.
Why?
Because of my flannel panty-liner. These new scans are so horrible that if you are wearing something unusual (like a piece of cloth on your panties) then you will be subjected to a search where a woman repeatedly has to check your "groin" while another woman watches on (two in my case – they were training in a new girl – awesome). (
Read the full thing here)
And on how much these scanners see.
Actually, they do see your crotch area in surprising detail.
Some pictures have been saved, and then leaked.
There's also the "composite pic" that they've used as an "example" in many news articles,
like this one in the Daily Mail. Maybe it's just me, but I can see "everything" in that pic, even if it's overlap of a few different people!
I know that if I fly, it doesn't matter whether I'm packing or not, if I go through the scanner I'm likely to get patted down.
Either because the foreign object, the soft packer in my pants will make them grab me, or because my crotch will look barren while I look, sound, act, and am titled male.
The thing is, I would consider that invasive a pat down to be sexual assault.
Not "rape" but assault.
I'd be grabbed, inappropriately, on my genitals and other intimate regions, by a stranger.
And if I did not consent to it, then I'm likely to get either a) sent right back on the next flight at my own expense, or b) arrested and thus manhandled by police instead!
So...
While this is the standard, I sincerely doubt I'll be flying to the states, at all.
