I'm really sorry this happened, and personally I would find the experience even more disturbing because these clerks were being so nice. Giving you a hug even! If that was okay with you, I'm glad, but that would have been deeply disturbing to me, a hug after coercing me into a secret back room to have my private parts scrutinized. I'm also glad, by the way, that the secret patdown wasn't as bad as the first one, but that really highlights the kafkaesque absurdity of the whole affair. And it doesn't change the fact that for a solo female traveler to be led away from the public eye by strangers to a "private" location for said private parts scrutiny can be a terrorizing experience in its own right. It's an experience we know to protect ourselves from at all costs everywhere else, and yet our own government wants to force us to submit to it just because their screeners are wearing uniforms.

This EDT thing is perhaps the most distressing part of the checkpoint for me, since it really is truly random, and puts you into this secret room patdown grey area, about which we know very little in terms of what is allowed, what to expect, what our rights are, etc., and there's no camera to record any violation against you. How can you know if your brand of shampoo or lotion is going to alarm? Realistically, you can never know. And what would have happened if the second swab had alarmed again? Would they have just shrugged and let you go, since clearly you weren't a threat? Once again, kafkaesque absurdity.