Air Travel Will Now Be Slightly Less Humiliating

Logan photo via Shutterstock

One thing you’ll never never hear a Logan TSA employee ask you is “How’s it hanging?” After you’ve been through the body scanner, they know exactly how it’s hanging.

A few years ago, everyone got their completely visible panties in a bunch about new security technology that visualizes travelers naked while they stand with their legs slightly splayed, hands above their head forming a diamond, and basically looking like they might start flash-dancing at any moment.

The images they captured, which amounted to security porn (securonography?), were so revealing that they had to be viewed in a separate room, according to the Globe, by a TSA agent whose job was, essentially, to look at naked, doughy Americans all day and figure out which ones were up to no good. Things got so bad this year that, in addition to the see-right-through-your-clothes scanners, the TSA came under fire for everything from profiling to confiscating a woman’s frosted cupcake. But those poor agents are in luck, and so are the rest of us: Logan is debuting new scanners that do their work faster and churn out scans with less anatomical detail.

The Globe says they make us all look like Gumby. I have to applaud this decision. There are few things in the world that are less threatening and less sexual than a green, vaguely human looking blob with no genitalia and an talking, orange horsey friend named Pokey.

It also goes to show that humiliation doesn’t have to be part of air travel, just as long as everyone remembers to wear the socks without holes.