So about a zillion people have written me about how the TSA has banned — at least in one ill-advised case — people wearing nipple rings from flying in America. Because, what, terrorists are planning on using exploding nipple rings? (Photo c/o Enrikay). Obviously this is a screener over-stepping their authority and abusing their power, rather than an official TSA mandate, but I think it illustrates both that the prejudice against even basic piercings is still strong, and that one of the strong arguments not to give any unwarranted powers to the government is that individuals always will abuse that power, even if the government itself is in theory “good”.
It also reminds me that the BME newsfeed has been sorely neglected over the last while — entirely my fault — despite the continued efforts of Ania and others. I’m pleased to say that Ania will be taking over managing the newsfeed, so over the next couple weeks, watch for regular updates (perhaps “this week in Mod News” or something) on what’s going on. IAM members, as always, can submit news here.
Update: The TSA has refused to apologize and stated that the above was in accordance with official policy, although they say they’ll be updating the policy to allow people to simply show their piercings rather than being forced to remove them.
Comments
89 responses to “No Nipple Piercings On Flights?”
What? Really? Sounds completely bizarre. How do the company argument the decision?
yeah i havent heard about that one either? does anyne know where i can read that article?
ill have to try to remember that submission page, i see stuff once in a while!
as for the nipple thing, thats gotta be bs! jewelry doesnt even set off detectors (from my experience anyways) so why would they say no nipple jewelry?! ive never had my crotch bling set off anything, and theyve never even known its there!
uhhh… how would they even know you have nipple rings? the jewelry shouldn’t be setting off metal detectors. strip searching everybody now?
America is fucking retarded.
A comment I will happily steal from the link you provided:
If god had not meant me to pierce myself then why did he give me nipples?
The funny thing is….they never made her take out her navel piercing.
Here is a more in depth article:
http://insightbb.com/story.aspx?doc=ONLINE/D8VMA97O2.xml&top=NEWS
Hmm, remind me never to fly.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080328/tod-uk-usa-security-jewelry-6d5fb3c.html
That’s good to hear the newsfeed will get fixed! It’ll be in good hands – go Ania! 🙂
It’s worth noting that this story involves a hand held metal detector. I’ve walked through hundreds of gateway-style detectors and never set one off, but I did have a nipple ring set off a hand held model at the Oakland airport in the pre 9/11 era.
Even before the TSA era, airport employees seemed under-trained and with a penchant for getting off on humiliating people during the inescapable security process. Now they’re even more under-trained and even more over-empowered.
Wheres the click through?!
that dude seems rather happy to be gawking at her chest. haha
im fully with #5
I travel a couple of times a year and I’ve been taken out of line every time I’ve flown. My large gauge metal jewelery has never set off the hand-held metal detectors…this still makes me nervous as hell.
Whenever I get the pat-down and they’re right about at my crotch, I like to say, “Mmm, you have strong hands.”
A friend of mine was issued a type of card saying he contained metal (he shot himself through the hand while we were in the army – bit of a klutz) to present to metal detector points (mostly airport, but anywhere really). It’s kind of a tricky thing in both cases – should you be needed to flash your nipples if they’re pierced? Kind of rude, but then on the other hand you could conceal a metal object and just say “my nipples/nuts are pierced” – same with my friend though he was wand raped every time he went through – the card was just to say “his hand will beep – it’s just like that”. Forcing them to be taken out is just insane of course, but then no matter how this turns out, I doubt they’ll do it again and perhaps it’ll bring some good attention to this matter.
In Portugal a government party wants to pass a law that regulates piercings, who can get them and where.
First, they want to make it illegal for anyone under 18 to get tattooed, pierced or permanent makeup, even with parents consentment.
Second, and most worrying, they want to ban certain piercing no matter how old you are, alleging they are a matter of public health: tongue and genital piercings, or other places near blood vessels, nerves and muscles, as well as silver and gold covered piercings.
They also want to make the tattoo artist make the client read and sign a paper where he tells all the procedures and riscs involved, wich they’ll have to keep for 5 years.
The penalty for not obbeying the law will go from 1490€ up to 44890€.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
The thing that gets me is that they made her take them out–one was just a barbell, so that was easy, but the other was a CBR, apparently. She said she couldn’t take it out without a tool; they handed her a pair of garden-variety pliers. Great situation, no?
Yikes… my family doesn’t know my nipples are pierced. Let’s hope I never run into something like this while flying with them, or I’m in for a hell of a time.
haha i’m so used to beeing stopped in those metal controls.
I simply lift up my arms and walk left,away from the que.
But then,they see me doing that..they know i’m expecting it and don’t have anything to hide.
they say ” allright,remove all metal objects from your pockets.”
When it still beeps…well. Not very hard to figure why.
However,a loophole for all you guys out there…
Titanium and in even further extention PTFE plastic or acrylic for example don’t create magnetic fields in large quantities or even not at all.
So,use these items instead and just fly and be happy.
flying sucks enough as it is, jesus christ i want out of this evil fucking country
#5 and #10 you have said it all.
I had set off a metal detector in the House of Parliament with my navel a few weeks ago. First I thought it was my belt bucket that set it off but others had those as well and could walk through without a problem. I got checked with the hand-held detector and when it started beeping the guard was like “What’s there?” I said: “Navel piercing.” He didn’t say anything just stood out of my way. It was funny.
PixiETroll, you have to have implant grade titanium, as lower grades may contain types of metal that are magnetic. I think titanium can still be caught by the wand though, maybe. I also believe that implant grade steel should not set off metal detectors as it should not be magnetic as well. I also think they are starting to introduce different types of metal detectors that aren’t based off magnetic fields but of densities of materials going through them (that might be how the wands work) so you couldn’t escape those.
I don’t understand why they wanded her twice as she got through the first one fine. I also thought it was funny in the article I read about it, it said that often skin grows onto the jewelry making it terribly painful to remove… haha.
America IS fucking retarded. That’s why I’m going to France this summer. …except America might not let me leave because I have microdermals on my chest. Is it really just nipple piercings? how specific are they? either way, that’s totally ridiculous and doesn’t sound legal. However, I live in Santa Cruz, Ca, USA and they just made it illegal to have BLANKETS outside after about 11pm to attack the homeless people in the area. I hate our government.
I think this is just the start of things to come. I don’t know why they are targeting nipples but I think when airports start using biometric systems properly they will ban facial modifications all together.
I wear a titanium bar in my right nipple and I’ve never set the detectors off in any airport. Aside from the fact they want you to virtually strip off these days the only metal on my person would be my piercings…so maybe PiXiETroll is right! In any case, I’m sure someone would create a work around lol.
The last time I was on an airplane was 2005, I was going to Mexico from New York with a changeover in Chicago. My lobes are stretched to over an inch and I am visibly tattooed. Most of my piercings are under my clothes. Surprisingly enough, I was totally ignored at every check point (including customs) but my little brother… who is about as straight laced and “normal” (aka boring) looking as they come, was strip-searched at every location. It seemed to make sense… wouldn’t a terrorist want to blend in as much as possible?
Besides, the people they are looking for are Islam zealots… I doubt people with such a strict interpretation of the Koran would have body piercings.
this sounds like one really unfortunate incident at one airport. i wouldn’t say anybody is targeting nipple piercings or even piercings in general until somebody can show me this sort of incident has happened multiple times. nonetheless, my sympathy is with the woman. truly unnecessary and frankly harmful.
A bit pointless considering that half the people on here could smuggle enough semtex up their ass or verjayjay to take down an A380…
Fuck them. I’m replacing all my Ti and acrylic with IRON. That’ll teach the bitches. You want me to take my boxers off after my sweaty ass has been trapped on a plane for twelve hours? Fine…Your loss.
*n
Bendtheglass: trust me, France is equally retarded. Maybe not in ridiculous laws, but the general view on modifications is so conservative…
I pray for the day when everyone who says they are leaving America actually grow the balls to do it.
I hate going through passport control it sucks, you’re treated like cattle. When I was flying home from Mexico a few years ago they made everyone take off their shoes before boarding the plane. When it came to searching the bags it was done by hand, you had to walk up to a table, open the bag yourself and step back…then two security people went through your bags with a fine tooth comb and you were not allowed to touch them after that. This is the best airport security I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately some places in Europe like Greece have very poor airport security, but the Canary Islands has the butches female security guards ever, they’re mean and they shout at you like your an escaped convict or something.
If it comes down to getting wanded, setting off the metal detector and opting to not show one’s privates, what can TSA do? It’s retarded, but they don’t know what’s there unless they check. How about metal detector-safe piercings?
cere – If it is anything like the UK, they’ll just bitch about government, immigration, pollution, environment, social dogma, social reform, the poor, the rich, the normal, the extreme…But never do anything about it.
*n
That’s ridiculous and disgusting. I’m so tired of TSA and Homeland Security over-stepping their boundaries. Makes me sick. I’m happy to be an American… but unhappy with my country in a LOT of ways.
this just sounds ridiculous.
on another note, i’m not a big fan of facial tattoos — but this guy’s rocks.
That girl is hot as fuck
i just want to say that these “I hate America” comments are ludicris. its not americas fault, its the tsa. they are the ones we should be getting up in arms about. not America. also, i agree with rob. 🙂
Btw, how much metal does it take to set these things off? I recently got through security with 1 8ga. ring, 4 10ga. bbs, and 2 12ga. bbs, all steel, all in one…ahh…region. More metal than a coin-pocket full of change. Thought for sure I’d set off the alarm but didn’t.
The boyfriend’s nipple ring didn’t set off any metal detectors on our recent trip to Vegas, and he’s got a titanium arm bone, to boot.
Mine (before I retired them) did set off a wand detector in Orange County, but I think the security lady assumed it was the underwire in my bra.
Either way, the events described in this story are ridiculous.
thats a very pretty girl with some lovely boobies,
This is rather silly its just a piece of jewelry you wouldnt ban bracelets.
I heard that, it made me so mad! Like I’m going to get out of my chair in the middle of the flight and beat another dude to death with my nipples? Come on now.
cere – i got the huevos, i need the money douchebag
a couple years ago i was “randomly selected” for a pat down at an airport. the wand beeped over my nipples i told the the guy and he felt to check. then the wand beeped over my apadravya and i got a wierd look from the guy. i told him what it was and offered to show him. he declined and aske dthat i go into a room, remove it and come back out to rewand the area. he never actually saw the barbell in my had. it could have been a nail file stashed in my penis
Nail file stashed in a penis? That sounds uncomfortable. I never set off any metal detectors at airports with my jewelry. The thing that got me the most was:
“After nipple rings are inserted, the skin can often heal around the piercing, and the rings can be extremely difficult and painful to remove,”
Yeah, if you wear cheap shit for jewelry. Great, more piercing rumors that closed minded idiots will focus on and refuse to listen to the facts. I hope that poor woman takes legal action.
Kwaniesiam – Don’t think it would be *too* uncomfortable…
*n
#17 “…places near blood vessels, nerves and muscles…”
Doesn’t that make any possible place?
I have a friend who had some serious deviation of her column (not sure was it an accident or congenital, she never told me the details) and has some sort of metal support (she claims it is made out of platinum but it seems a very heavy and expensive metal to use so I assume she might had missunderstood that but anyway it is made of some metal) and she did set up a metal detector in a bank a few mounths ago. Despite having a very clear scar running from about the base of the nape to as low as one can see with her pants on and explaineing very clearly about having had an operation she was not let in by the idiot ward. I wonder how whould she be treated by similar persons in an airport… Ah, yes, I understand she changed bank now…
Damn, and I thought it was bad over here; I spent an hour trying to explain to a french security gaurd that, no, my smiley piercing is not coming out! Knives stashed in a smiley anyone?
I’ve been ‘randomly selected’ for searches the last 6 times I’ve been on planes, not suspicious at all, eh?
#17- Seriously?! Do they honestly think that’s going to work? All that’ll do is force people to go to illegal studios
Gotta say, I think that guy has some of the best facial tattoos I’ve ever seen, they’re stunning!
Just out of intrest, does anyone know how the TSA react to implants?