I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

1) Last week I got a wedding invitation from my cousin in Connecticut (well, a "Save The Date" technically. That seems to be a purely American invention, but seems roughly comparable to a wedding invitation in my Canadian eyes). This was on the same day I found out about these new "enhanced" patdowns.

2) My dad loves NASCAR, and his birthday is in February, right around the running of the Daytona 500. For years, I've wanted to take him there for his birthday. It's a whole week of different races, and I'm sure he'd love it. It appears I've waited too long / didn't get the money in time.

Two scenarios where I'd really like to visit the States, mostly for my dad. With these new "security" measures in place, however, there is no way I'm going to subject myself to such an ordeal just for a vacation. It might not necessarily be the sexual assault some people claim, but if my only option is to be either photographed nude or have some agent grabbing my junk, I'd rather just stay home.

In this case, the TSA agent obviously broke protocol. I can't see it as mandatory for the victom of the breach to stick to her part of the protocol by keeping still and silently enduring the abuse.

However, it is clear that her lack of immediate response was not a concious decision. I'm very familiar with the paralysis of mind and body that occurred. As a martial arts instructor, I see this happen a lot especially in the beginner's classes. With an opponent just holding your arm or making any kind of physical contact in a fashion you're not accustomed to, your mind can very easily go blank and you fail to move at all. A lot of self defense training is directed to just overcoming the paralysis induced by fear and/or shock.

It is clear that the author post-poned all reactions until after the fact. Perhaps from a legal standpoint this was the best course of action. But from a human standpoint, it is my view that the trauma incurred would have been far less damaging if she had reacted immediately to what was happening.

To get to my point: for anyone that want to explore your own reactions to similar situations, it is both very affordable and illuminating to try out a few self defense or martial arts classes. Read up on what is available in your area and just try it out.

With just a few classes, you can learn to react to abusive physical contact with a sharp, verbal NO!! instead of freezing into silent paralysis during the abuse and bearing the resulting trauma. You even react to verbal abuse or just plain criticism from other people in a different way if you practice martial arts. It is beneficial to everyday situations a lot less dramatic than in the post above.

Just to be clear, and I'm not saying you said that I said that (uh...), I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of doctors are not in the profession for this reason (a reasonably large part of my family and friends are doctors, all of them fine professionals with nothing but the best intentions in mind). So just to make clear that I'm not hammering on doctors here :)

That said, OK let's take away the consent. Let's say you're under anesthesia for removing your sinuses and the doctor pulls up the blanket and performs a genital exam. I still hold that this is not sexual assault.

(Note that this is not a hypothetical example. It is fairly common practice in Dutch hospitals for interns to practice gynecological exams on women on the surgery table, even without these women knowing. 4 or 5 students literally line up for this practice. There was a minor fuss about it a few years ago, maybe standards have been changed since then. The references I can find about it date from 2005-2006 and are all in Dutch. The doctors back then thought it was normal and nothing to be up in arms about. I have no reason to believe doctors in other countries have different methods; after all, otherwise where are these students going to practice? ).

Why on earth do they believe they'll find a razor blade on a persons body? They don't, because they're not looking for weapons because every real weapon known to man is detectable from a metal detector, and the majority of improvised weapons still use metal detectable parts.

Considering I've walked through a metal detector with literally a fistful of change and it hasn't gone off, I question the usability of all airport screening. I frequently have like $10 in small change on me.