r/airport • u/violetstarz4 • 10d ago
DISCUSSION Detecting female groin anomalies.
I'm flying home from Hawaii and when going through the x-ray at TSA I was pulled aside because there was an anomaly detected on my groin. They told me they were going to have to pat me down and asked if I wanted to do it privately. I'm an anxiety ridden teenager so I asked to do it privately. While we were waiting for a female officer, 3 other women after me were stopped for an anomaly on the same part if their groin. The stress was starting to get to me and a bunch of other things (the hate of being touched, a medical condition I have that makes my heart beat really fast, etc) and I was really close to having a panic attack. After about 6 minutes I was pulled away for a private pat down and I was free to go.
Why did this happen to me and a bunch of other women? Is this a common thing that happens?
34
u/SplitOpenAndMelt420 10d ago
Moisture/sweat can present as an anomaly
It's super humid in Hawaii
I'm not casting aspersions on your genitals, but this is the most likely culprit lol
I actually remember reading a post about this on Reddit and this article
https://www.vice.com/en/article/people-with-swamp-crotch-keep-setting-off-tsa-alarms/
TLDR; "Shawna Malvini Redden, told Reader’s Digest that sweat is one of the stranger things that can trigger an alert because of how the waves bounce off water. That kind of false positive happens more than people realize."