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Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

In all the TSA discussions on Hacker News, people seem to have settled on a procedure which is maximally inconvenient for the TSA but should still allow you to catch your flight: opt out of the backscatter scanning, request a supervisor to be present during the pat down to make sure you're not sexually abused, and make sure they do the pat down in the public screening area rather than a private room. You do get groped, but it makes an impression on the other travelers, slows down the system, and makes the groping agent uncomfortable, which are all positive outcomes in terms of protesting the system.

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The notion that a TSA pat-down is in any way, shape, or form equivalent to "sexual abuse" is an insult to anyone who has been a victim of the real thing.

"Sexual abuse" is a very wide spectrum. Unwanted touching is where is begins. That is not to cheapen those who have suffered at the other end of the spectrum.

I disagree.

It's a spectrum that is as wide or as narrow as you wish it to be. I personally think it's more narrow than many others do here on HN, for example. I think a real lame effect that happens though is that the instant someone uses the word assault or abuse it suggests much more evil or sexually explicit or intimate acts than what an actual specific situation may have involved. The phrase "sexual assault" can start off being applied to a hand on the back or kiss on the cheek, and then as the description of the event propagates across many people or channels, suddenly it can morph into "rape" or "molestation" -- even though traditionally those words refer to much more serious and specific, intimate and/or violent sexual acts.

It's one of the things I think we as a society, in any general public forum, with no serious moderation or curation or participant filtering (like HN, in my judgment) cannot discuss intelligently or productively because it's always vulnerable to this particular thought error, among others.

Unwanted touching is where is begins.

More specifically, unwanted sexual touching. I don't like people jostling against me in crowds but that isn't "sexual abuse."

Oh really? http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/rape-survivor-d...

Beware of the big fat simile in that post. A personal impression does not an offense make.

The offense of "sexual assault" requires "sexual behavior" to take place. A security pat down delivered in the appropriate, formal manner is not a display of sexual behavior though it could become such. The mere touching of "intimate" areas does not make it "sexual" per se, however.

And nor does voting this down change the letter of the law. Think about it for a minute. If any unauthorized touching of one's genitalia is "sexual assault", a surgeon performing an emergency operation could be in serious trouble. Thankfully the law in most nations distinguishes between sexual and non-sexual touching, even if the subject of the blog entry does not.

I didn't say it was--I said that you should ask for a supervisor to be present during your pat down to prevent sexual abuse. How you could have interpreted my comment otherwise is mystifying.

No, but the parent article did: "I felt what they were doing was a sexual assault."

This is a systematic invasion of what could only be described as MORE than just "privacy". It's a humiliating public encounter with someone touching your genitals. The fact that there could be worst executions of sexual abuse doesn't make what's going on in airports any better.

Do you consider the forms of cancer which are curable and treatable not a "real" form of cancer?

While I certainly agree with you that it's nowhere near as bad as rape or sexual assault, it's certainly something I'd go to jail for if I did it to someone. Heck, if a cop did that invasive a search without probable cause, he'd face repercussions and probably a lawsuit.

Note that "sexual abuse" does not equal "rape". It would certainly be an insult if one were to compare it to rape, but that's no the case.

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