The woman who may or may not have been a ballerina may or may not have enjoyed the officer’s compliment. There’s no way to tell. But consider her situation. In the next few minutes, she would likely be given the following choice: a) submit to having nude photos of her body taken by individuals in another room; b) submit to having her private parts touched by a stranger; or c) miss her flight, be detained, have a) and b) as well as d) through m) happen anyway, and maybe also get sued for eleven thousand dollars. That is what we call a major fucking power imbalance. In that context, even the slightest hint of a sexual approach on the part of a TSO could be considered not just harassment but assault. You’re saying, basically, “pretend to flirt with me, or my gender-appropriate equivalent over here might have to get rough with your tender bits.” So there’s a nonzero chance that instead of feeling flattered, she felt forced to make bedroom eyes at a creep to avoid being finger-raped.
If you’re part of a government that compares itself favorably to the Taliban, you have no business taking that chance. The only acceptable demeanor for a TSA officer toward a passenger, especially when the TSO is male and the passenger is female, is abject humility. No one made you take a job where you clinically deprive innocent people of their dignity under threat of force. You signed up for that, and I expect to see the apology on your face at all times. I expect to hear it in your voice; I expect to smell it in your goddamned sweat. And I expect you to wear that apology long after your disgusting daily routine is finally found unconstitutional and your hideous organization is disbanded and its leaders imprisoned. I expect you to wear that apology not because it makes up for all the years you helped ruin America — which it doesn’t — but because it’s simply the bare minimum standard of behavior someone in your position must meet in order to call himself a human being.
p.s. By the way, my standard response upon refusing to participate in as much of the TSA’s theatrical terror (thereby forcing them to manhandle me) is abject silence, with the most complete look of contempt I can muster. As Dan says, being “as privileged as privileged gets” means I don’t have to suffer the worst of it. But it sure as hell doesn’t mean I like that others do.
