Naomi Wolf's RSN post: 'My sex life with the TSA'

OPINION/PERSPECTIVE COMBO

(Gazette Blog Editor's note: The following blog post is somewhat sexually explicit, but it's also darn funny and, we think, revealing.  We have therefore decided its redeeming social value outweighs its prurience.  Enjoy.)

By Naomi Wolf
Reader Supported News
readersupportednews.org

27 May 11 - This blog post is titled: "My Sex Life With the TSA." Because I am getting a LOT of action from them.

I went through JFK this past week. As usual, I request not to go through the backscatter machines. And as usual, they tell me that SINCE I mentioned it at all, they have to give me a "pat-down."

Well, without flowers or candlelight or even a nice dinner, I am led into a highly visible corner, after quite a wait for a "female officer". They did ask if I wanted to go somewhere private but I would have felt even MORE uncomfortable NOT in a public setting.

A very attractive African-American woman in her mid-twenties was tasked with searching me. So of course, a skanky male traveler - white, mid-forties, affluent - decides to stand around and watch.

As this nice young woman goes through the whole procedure, I asked her - as I always ask TSA officials - if their training had explained to them WHY this process was necessary or what purpose it served. She said, "No," and her female colleague standing nearby also said "No."

Interestingly, the procedure is quite highly eroticized. She kept saying "Now I am going to touch your sensitive area." Which made me think that at least a generation of young women are going to learn where their clitorises are through our US tax dollar, which certainly has a social benefit.

But as she was engaged in quite thoroughly going through this process, the skanky white affluent male traveler, who was now done with his own security process, was HANGING OVER THE EDGE of the low barrier, perfectly relaxed, enjoying the scenario! And commenting: "Hey, can I have you pat me down?" "Hey, its always big hairy men with hair on their knuckles patting me down ... I want you to pat me down ... can I participate? I'll sign a waiver!" Swear to God.

So this poor woman - shades of the DSK cleaner, but harassed this time by the State - is being sexually degraded by the process she has to go through; sexually degraded by a passenger; and I feel rather sexually degraded too, by the process put in place by the State.

Finally I say sharply to him, "That's enough!" and the two women look at me in surprise.

"We thought he was with you!" they say.

"Never seen him before," I comment. And we all have a moment of bonding, being women in a state of complete skanked-at-ness.

Brought to you by the United States Government. 

Naomi Wolf, Bestselling Author - The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot