Your nipple piercings are a threat to national security. A Texas woman says she was in tears, and pain and left feeling humiliated after TSA employees made her remove her nipple piercings before being allowed to pass through security. In response, a TSA spokesman said that if an alarm goes off, “until that is resolved, we’re not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they’re wearing or where they’re wearing it.”
Woman Says TSA Forced Piercings Removal [AP] (Thanks to Benny!)
More From Consumerist
-
Woman Accused Of Groping TSA Agent Claims Turnabout Is Fair Play
-
Dying Woman Says TSA Humiliated Her By Refusing To Perform Search In Private
-
Passenger Says TSA Handled Her Feeding Tube During Strip Search
-
Undercover TSA Inspector Gets Through Airport Security Just Fine With Fake Bomb In His Pants
-
Petition Calls On White House To Require TSA To Seek Public Comment On Full-Body Scanners
Not really suprising.
I think this is really sad. As someone who also has body piercings, I shouldn’t have to worry about some TSA jerk on a power trip suddenly deciding that my nipple piercings have to come out for some asinine reason. Not to mention that what the article states about removing them can sometimes be true (depends on the type of piercing, really). They can sometimes be uncomfortable to remove, and for most people, having a piercing without jewelry in it causes it to close relatively quickly.
Just when one thinks the TSA can’t go much lower…oy.
Gloria Allred… sheeyit…
“or where they’re wearing it.”
This has the potential to go horribly wrong.
Um…stainless steel shouldn’t set off the detectors. Otherwise all of my friends would have to get to airports an additional 2 hours early. I wonder what she was wearing…
Granted it might be easy to make up a policy based on body jewelry that doesn’t involve removing it, but who leaves metal jewelry in when they know they have to go through a metal detector? You can remove the metal jewelry and put in plastic replacements for travel. If it really causes you pain to remove it, it must be causing you pain to wear it. I just don’t see why anyone needs to be allowed to keep their metal jewelry on when going through a metal detector. It wastes everyone’s time when they have to take you aside and wand you or take you to a private room to view the jewelry. Maybe the women working for the TSA doesn’t want to stare at your private parts just so you can fly with your body piercings in. This really just seems to be a case of someone not realizing that their body jewelry will set off the metal detector.
I’m more interested in how they even found out, the article says she passed through the larger scanner with no issues so why was she suddenly picked for a more through search?
Still, that’s pretty demeaning and if they let her pass with a belly button piercings I don’t see why they would FORCE her to remove her nipple piercings. Another TSA horror story to be sure. I wonder if the TSA would have even bothered had it been an appropriate male appendage piercing.
I really don’t blame them for their policy.
How in the world would the woman have known her piercing’s would set off an alarm? It obviously wouldn’t be advertised on the TSA’s website, and as someone who has piercings…it would never cross my mind to remove them.
However, if they needed to be removed…even the most sensitive ones…could easily be removed. It’s never safe if a piece of metal grafts to your skin. Perhaps her piercer didn’t inform her of the possible problems if your body began to attach to the piercing?
@Concerned_Citizen:
Well, the article says the skin tends to grow around the piercings and that’s why she needed pliers to get the second one out. I guess her body was used to it so it hurt more to rip out the skin and put in plastic than to just leave it in. I also wonder if this lady has had any problems at other airports?
Nipple piercings? Ouch!!!
If this had happened to me, I don’t think I would take them out. I’d tell them I’m not boarding the plane, please retrieve my baggage, I’ll take a train. I don’t HAVE to fly. It hurts like hell to take out a nipple piercing, I’ve had to for MRIs. And no, this does not mean there’s something wrong with them–they don’t hurt in day to day life, they’re not infected, I take care of them, and I see a doctor every 3 months to check on them. It just means you have a piece of steel through a very sensitive body part. How would it feel if you had to remove a piece of steel from your penis? Yeah. That said, stainless steel will not set off the metal detectors so there’s really no reason she should have to take them out to pass security.
I bet you feel really cool having them. You must be really popular and stuff.
This isn’t really an option for everyone, but my advice is: just don’t fly. I don’t plan on flying again until the TSA retards are better trained, or (even better) are removed altogether.
From a longer version of the AP article:
“‘Our security officers are well-trained to screen individuals with body piercings in sensitive areas with dignity and respect while ensuring a high level of security,’ the agency said in a statement.”
I love it when the official statements directly contradict the facts. It is obvious that the officers were not well-trained to treat people with dignity and respect.
[www.nytimes.com]
I get the feeling from reading the article that if all the TAS screeners had been women, she wouldn’t have been asked to remove the piercings. But instead, some jack ass male screeners wanted to see some tits. Booooooooooooo
I’m tired of hearing people bitching about airport screeners. They are trained to follow a book of standard operating procedures. They screen according to these procedures. If you don’t like the procedure, feel free to not fly. Or better yet, write the TSA administration with your complaints. Then write your congressperson. These are the people who can affect change in policies. Denigrating the workers as “retards” as some jackass above did is unfair to the VAST majority of screeners who do their jobs well. Not every person in every job is going to be a shining example of humanity’s progress, but to paint all screeners as mouth-breathing idiots shows your own ignorance.
@Lin-Z: Male screeners are not permitted to screen females at all and they are not even permitted to be present at a private screening of a female.
I have a nipple piercing, it has never set off an alarm. But one time, closer to just after 9/11, the underwire in my bra set off the hand scanner. They pulled me aside a little to the area where they were checking a bunch of people and a female screener patted me down along my bra until they were assured it was just my bra and not some hidden weapon, I suppose.
My partner also has large piercings in her ears that require pliers to remove and if anyone ever asked her to remove them at the airport, she would make a huge scene and we’d probably get arrested or something. I shudder to think what would happen if they asked me to remove my piercing.
I’m sure the TSA is protecting us from the TX Terminators.
+ Watch video
@mienna: I think the problem was that the screeners were not following TSA procedures. There is no TSA directive that says people must remove piercings.
So what happens to someone with a fresh piercing? You’re not supposed to remove the jewelry on a fresh piercing because the hole will close up.
In 2000, I flew cross-country for my high school reunion. My chest piercings didn’t set off the walk-through detector, but the wand caught them.
I ended up getting felt up under the shirt (I’m a guy) by a 70+yo TSA “guard” in front of the crowd of people lined up for the plane. He wouldn’t just let me lift my shirt and show him, the bastard.
And my piercings don’t come out. They’ve been in since I got them in ’99, and I’m pretty sure that removal would be semi-permanent.
D’oh. Reread that, and it must have been in 2002, when I flew out for another thing. No TSA in 2000.
Anyway. I avoid flying now, almost categorically.
“…until that is resolved, we’re not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they’re wearing or where they’re wearing it.”
“Which is, I admit, a bit of a bummer for people with metal plates in their heads, but y’know, there could be a revolver under there or something. The TSA recommends you bring your own angle-grinder to help us remove your plate, on account of how you probably don’t want to touch one of the… communal… ones.”
I get why I can’t bring large bottles of liquid in my carry-on luggage.
I get why I have to take off my shoes.
But having to remove body piercings when there’s an easy way to verify that they’re there? And absolutely harmless?
I guess I don’t feel like other people’s body piercings are going to put me or anyone else traveling in danger. Oh nos – guy next to me has a piercing in his shlong…hralp!
@SpiderJerusalem: Stainless steel will set off the detectors, but jewelry is usually a small enough amount that it isn’t detected.
I have my belly button done. I have flown on serval trips since 9/11 and never have I been pulled by the TSA or wanded/patted down so far. I wonder if there is more to the story….
She’s old and gross anyway.
I forgot to take off my belt once. It didn’t go off.
I had my nipple piercings set off the wand at DFW. They requested that I take them out or not board, and I asked if I could just show them to the screeners. “We can’t ask you to do that”. “You don’t have to ask, I’m offering”. Got a private screening with two female staff members who were polite, and a little awed.
I have a belly piercing and at one time had two belly piercings and I’ve never set off a metal detector. I was even wand screened once and nothing.
@Concerned_Citizen: i never take my jewelry off when i go to the airport and i’ve never had any problems. FYI i wear 2 rings, a watch, and earrings.
@Chols: Depends on what sensitivity the walk through scanner is set to. I had a metal Cross brand pen clipped to my shirt collar. In my home airport of Nashville (an area hosting about 5,000 former Iraqi Kurds) the walk through went off. I tried this again on purpose for my flight from the return airport (which will remain un-named) and walked through with no problem, no trip…
“Sir…SIR…calm down. I know you broke your arm in 19 places, but until you remove those screws and rods, you are NOT flying today. Rules are rules. Now…where is that hacksaw?”
ANECDOTE!
This happened to me with an eyebrow piercing way before TSA abuse became the norm. The abuser was Delta (out of Hartsfield) – I was flying on a buddy pass and my eyebrow ring didn’t fit their dress code.
People always ask me “why didn’t you just put a bandaid on it?” … the answer is because a) I didn’t know it was an issue in advance and b) once the guy at ticketing saw it, he wouldn’t let me cover it up. He refused to issue my boarding pass until I removed it.
(I had never removed it in the two years I’d had it. It bled. Then I really needed a bandaid.)
Needless to say, by the time I got to San Francisco, it had already started healing up. I had no way to sterilize the jewelry but forced it through anyway because I am obviously hard-core.
Two weeks later, I woke up to a pink, puffy eyebrow. Thanks, Delta!
The current TSA should really be dumped. That, or we import better, more professional people from other countries to work security. America seems to be the only country with this issue.
@monkey33: Seems like you were reasonable, and they treated you well because of it. However, there are many other instances where people try to be reasonable with the TSA only to find they are talking to a robot trained to follow only what’s written in the training manual, and not put any thought into their job.
Couldn’t she have just put ‘em on the glass?
@marike: You’re ahead of me, I can’t figure out the liquid thing.
@jamar0303: The most efficient airport security I have seen was in China. Everyone gets scanned with the wand, and they seem to know what they’re doing much more than the TSA. No taking off your shoes, walking through the metal detector four times, or any of the other fun activities the TSA has us do here.
I here Isreal has real nice security people as well.
@utensil42: “How would it feel if you had to remove a piece of steel from your penis?”
Um…I would not put a piece of steel in my penis.
@CRNewsom: Very true. I know that the TSA folks can be both reasonable professionals or jerks with a badge; I’ve been very lucky when flying and usually get nice, friendly, professional screeners. I also fly out of Kansas City normally, and they have private security that beats the TSA every day.
@backbroken: I at least wouldn’t wear it into an airport, and on to an uncomfortable airplane.
All of you Prince Charles’ out there are on a different level of thought than I am I guess. Jesus that looks scary.
This makes me extremely glad my surgical screw has never set off the metal detectors at an airport.
@CRNewsom: Israel has IMO the best security in the world. Their security agents are trained to profile people based on how they are acting (tone of voice, how the stand, etc…). It’s all quick, painless, and very efficient.
@Concerned_Citizen:
I leave my jewelry in. Metal detectors have varying sensitivity thresholds, and most are set to ignore tiny amounts of metal (and from a friend with a MASSIVE amount of steel in his groin, apparently, they can customize those settings according to body regions, as well. Courthouse, sporting events, and airports – we both go through with almost no problems caused by jewelry).
The only time my piercings have even been noticed by the TSA was when my heavy, steel, locked necklace set off the detector at Ohare (the only one it’s ever set off), and when I told them the only way it COULD come off right then was with bolt cutters, they did a wand screening, and that’s when they found the piercings.
And the TSA agent who did that was gloriously polite – I didn’t need to be re-assured that my nipple piercings were perfectly normal, but she kept on about how I shouldn’t feel embarassed.
You also can only know to put in plastic ahead of time. I am not alone in saying ‘oh fuck no. I’m not putting in a retainer right here at security’. In addition to privacy, there’s sanitation, and in my case, nerves – I’d rather my piercer do it. And if all the research you’ve done indicates there’s absolutely no need, why would you? I checked with the TSA, the airline, talked to friends with even more piercings than I have, and took the chance to go through two metal detectors in my city (hockey game and courthouse) before traveling.
You’re grossly misinformed about piercings. Maybe ya ought to go get one or two. Make ‘em count
Whats more humiliating? The TSA forcing you to remove your piercings or announcing it to the whole world?
Jesus Christ people. I get so tired of these people who like to “test the waters” just to see how far they can go and then bitch and whine when they get challenged.
Everyone knows the state of security these days, especially in airports. They know that their will be a screening process and they KNOW that there will be metal detectors involved.
So what does this person do? She knowingly wears peircings that have a very high chance of setting off alarms then bitches when they ask her to remove them. Just another cut and dry case of someone knowing a rule, trying to act defiant by ignoring it, getting caught and bitching about it. There’s absolutely zero reason she needed to have those things on during her flight and she could have easily just removed them before even going to the airport. This reminds me of those people that try and sneak food into a movie theatre, get caught, and then complain about being caught for breaking a rule that they knew they were breaking.
If you don’t like a rule, fine. If you disagree with a rule, fine. If you want to see if you can bypass a rule, fine. If you get caught, you have no right to whine about it.
@mienna:
I’m a little surprised you think that airport screeners are so much da bomb. I gotta tell ya… I’m an unassuming 40 year old white woman who probably resembles most of their mothers, and I’m treated like total crap when I go through security. I get yelled at ALL the time. It’s like they take joy in making grown women cry.
Nothing in my life makes me feel like an insecure boob like going through airport security.
@Doofio: Except…piercings aren’t typically an issue. Well, standard gauge ones. And no, there aren’t rules against keeping in your piercings. At least, not publicly available ones that pierced travelers can reference before traveling.
The fact that you say there’s zero reason she needed to have them in shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Stick to commenting on issues about which you are fully informed (or at least not so clearly in the dark), maybe?
I have yet to set off the detector, but they’re going to be sorry if they tell me to remove my piercing (prince albert)