Airport Security Stops Woman For Wearing Nipple Rings

While most of us have grumbled at what seem like excessive security screening ay airports – like taking off our shoes, for example – we grudgingly put up with it as an inescapable fact of life in this era of terrorism. Not easy though; I’m still fuming over LA airport security confiscating a completely sealed and expensive bottle of Napoleon Cognac, last year, merely because I had it in my hand baggage. Still, I recognized that they were only following orders.

Sometimes, however, this blind adherence to following rules causes an absence of common sense, bordering on lunacy – as this true incident will illustrate. A woman in Texas was ordered by federal airport security screeners to remove her nipple rings with pliers. Yes, you read that right – nipple rings.

37-year old Mandi Hamlin was booked on a flight from Lubbock to Dallas. She passed through the metal detector without incident. However, later, when an agent from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) passed her hand-held scanner over Hamlin, there was a beep. Hamlin explained to the agent that she was wearing nipple rings (piercings). The agent would not just take her word for it, which is understandable. What is not so understandable is what followed.

The TSA agent called over her male colleagues, on of whom told her she would have to remove the nipple rings before being allowed to board the flight. You have to understand that these were not slip on ornaments that would come off easily. Hamlin reasonably offered to show the female agents her nipple rings in a private room. But the male officers were adamant that she would not be allowed to go aboard the airplane until the piercings were removed. Hamlin was taken behind a curtain and, with considerable difficulty and pain, had to take the help of pliers before the nipple rings would come off. One can only imagine the humiliation she felt.

Not surprisingly, the lady is now hopping mad. "This situation was totally out of control," she said. "I will not sit quietly. No one deserves to be treated this way." In time-honored American tradition, Hamlin is planning to sue the TSA and has demanded a full apology.

The TSA defended their action by citing incidents of female terrorists hiding explosives in "sensitive areas" which, they said, were on the rise. To bolster their case, they provided a picture of a "bra bomb" that was used in training its agents. Fair enough, although personally, I think it would take a breathtaking technological breakthrough in miniaturization to hide a bomb in a nipple ring. But what do I know?