Have you ever had a pat down at the airport?

Forgot to take my belt off so I got a pat down.

^See that’s perfectly logical. I forgot I had my wallet in my pocket one time while going through the scanner, and that caused an issue. But I wasn’t doing anything wrong this time, yet it happened twice. Curious.

Quite a few times. I do wear briefs. I tend to be looking around at things perhaps more than others do. I am tall and I think maybe look like someone who might be more threat-minded than others. I dress a little differently than some Americans. I’ve accidentally had knives and scissors on me that have been not allowed through the checks, though they were never on my person. I’ve sometimes worn belts through the machines.

But, I expect it’s also often just random.

On my most recent trip, I didn’t get much attention, and they told me I could wear my belt through the scanner.

Sadly, no.

A couple times for various reasons. Not a big deal. Once was because I was wearing compression socks, and their scanners couldn’t get a good image of my right leg. Another time was purely random, they said.

I wear boxers, but I’m not sure that matters.

Always male patdowns, and always wearing blue gloves.

Absolutely. I think they wanted to feel what I was packing.

I’ve gotten patted down several times. Most of the time it’s been pretty innocuous but in France, I had a really uncomfortable pat down from a woman who put her hands inside the band of my underpants. It felt really invasive. Another time, a TSA person said that perhaps the wire in my underwire bra had set things off but it’s also happened when I have worn a regular bra. i think it’s just random but that time in France was not comfortable.

Yes. For no reason except an excuse to put their hands on me!

@Forever_Free Well, that’s what I said. I was like “that’s not a pipe bomb, that’s just my package. God delivered it, I signed for it…”

I think once, by a woman. It was very quick and not very touchy-feely.

Sure. It was fine. I thanked them for doing their job.

Yes, didnt bother me at all except having to take off my shoes. Gross.

I had one last Saturday at Oakland. I am TSA Pre check, so usually just go right through, but since I cannot go through metal detector, sometimes they will pat me down even after going through the scanner..

I have never been inside of an airport.

Three times I’ve had a pat down. . . .two other times I had my hands and carry-on ” taped” which was then put in a drug sniffing machine.

After my prostate surgery and long recovery I had to wear a pee pad in my briefs.
i was patted down – with the back of the hand – pretty frequently. The pad held a fair amount of liquid so that was perfectly understandable.

Many times. I used to request them when I flew a lot. I’m not a fan of the radiation when I’m scanned instead.

About 12 years ago I had an accident and the ER unnecessarily did a shit ton of CT scans and some flat xrays, and I asked them to put in writing how much radiation I received and it was 20 years of background radiation plus pr minus 50%!! All in a minute. So, for years I avoided radiation when it seemed reasonable to do it.

There was a Q here years ago by a female jelly who was VERY upset when she was patted down. If I remember correctly she had a skirt on so the TSA person basically had her hand on the jellies underwear. The hand should be the side of the hand not cupping your genitals and is usually very fast.

I tell people to wear jeans or slacks made from a heavy-ish material when traveling if a pat down will feel like you are being molested.

I have never felt the TSA agent was inappropriate with me, but I’m not saying it can’t happen. I’m especially empathetic to people who have a history of being sexually abused or who generally are very modest and are easily uncomfortable with being touched.

I have certain a look. I’m a big guy, with a beard, and lots of tattoos. I was traveling with a skinny girl, who looked very innocent.
We were approached, and I thought “here we go.”
But. They took my female companion and searched her very thoroughly.

I used to obviously have to frisk, or search people as a former LEO.
I usually just swiped the genital area, making sure that there’s no gun or anything metal.
Call me what you want, I never really dug up in a dude’s ass and balls. We had to do it to each other, years ago when I was training. I just grabbed stuff in thar instance, to get through it.
All of us guys, had the same look on our face, when the instructor told us we’d be practicing on one another.
That was traumatic enough, for me.

I’ve been searched, many times.
Some are more thorough, than others. But most men, are reluctant to search another man’s crotch.
I probably let a few people slide, as a result.

I used to have to do purse searches, at big venues.
I had a little stick for digging in them. Only women, would probably believe the things I found in women’s purses…

Adrdessing the underwear part of the Q: My husband usually wears boxer briefs, briefs that go a little down the thigh, sometimes just trunks which are similar but shorter. He never gets pulled out of the line for a pat down. The only time he was “patted” was flying out of Bogota, Colombia, everyone is frisked and flying out Burlington, VT they patted his pockets on his cargo pants.

We just flew Round trip Orlando to Denver. 6 months ago we flew round trip Orlando to Dom Rep connecting through Miami. We have flown a lot through many different airports since pat downs became common.

Oh yeah. For the thread, I always wear knit boxers. For the record…

I’ve gotten the full pat down/poking twice so far. The first time, I was carrying on a mock up of an electronics enclosure made of radiation-shielding graphite composites. It looked like a suspicious, impenetrable box in the TSA X-ray. I actually made pull tabs on my enclosure so that TSA could easily open it in case they found it suspicious (which they did). They tenuously opened it (worried that it might explode), only to find that it was empty. Probably embarrassed them. It was a quiet night at LAX, so they succumbed to their temptation to give me the full treatment. Metal detector up my crotch.

The second time, the full-body, millimeter wave scanner detected the spare button in my pants that was sewn into the right pocket liner. The TSA agent couldn’t find it with a cursory pat down so had to really get into deep grabbing to finally figure out that it was just a button. I found that to be rather annoying.

They have patted my bony knees after the 360* scan. Then they swipe my hands.

Once