Why aren't saline implants banned?

Old Aug 14, 2006, 11:00 pm
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Originally Posted by J-M
No... not a valid point. You are either a man or a woman. A man with water-filled fake breasts outside of the body (i.e. as clothing) is not a woman. If they aren't real breasts, then you can't take it on the airplane. Fake breasts on a man are not allowed through and I see no reason why an exception should be made for cross-dressing.
If no exception should be made for transgender individuals then should one be made for women who endured mastectomies?
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 1:57 am
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Originally Posted by J-M
You are either a man or a woman.
Medically speaking, I believe this to be naive at best.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 7:22 am
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Do gel bras have underwires? and do underwires set off a metal detector? I doubt it. So how would security even know if a woman has a gel bra unless they check out every single woman. And it would be easy for anyone intent on blowing up a plane to weave a packet of gel into their clothing.

Pretty soon removal of all articles of clothing will be required to pass through security.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 7:39 am
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Because the laws are made by 50 year old men who want to be able to take their 22 year old mistresses to Miami! LOL
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 7:44 am
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Originally Posted by ridgeback
Do gel bras have underwires? and do underwires set off a metal detector? I doubt it. So how would security even know if a woman has a gel bra unless they check out every single woman. And it would be easy for anyone intent on blowing up a plane to weave a packet of gel into their clothing.

Pretty soon removal of all articles of clothing will be required to pass through security.
A well-endowed friend of mine says that her underwire bra sets off the WTMD each and every time she goes through.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 11:28 am
  #21  
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I would like to point out that these implants can be life saving!


"One Israeli woman has received an unexpected boost from her breast implants during the Lebanon war -- the silicone embeds saved her life during a Hezbollah rocket attack, a doctor said.

...

'The young woman went through surgery two years ago to have a larger chest,' he said. 'During the war she was wounded in the chest by shrapnel' that got stuck in the implants instead of penetrating further."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060815...t_060815120717
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 11:37 am
  #22  
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Originally Posted by J-M
No... not a valid point. You are either a man or a woman. A man with water-filled fake breasts outside of the body (i.e. as clothing) is not a woman. If they aren't real breasts, then you can't take it on the airplane. Fake breasts on a man are not allowed through and I see no reason why an exception should be made for cross-dressing.
Wouldn't you be unnecessarily humiliating the person who wants to live as a woman in this case? It strikes me as cruel to them to say, "Sorry, bud, we think you're a man even though a court has allowed you to change your name and your sex on your driver's license, etc."

I don't know any transgendered individuals, but from what I understand their gender identities even before surgery (if they opt for that) don't correlate to their physical sex, so saying "you're either a man or a woman" to these people is at best ignorantly simple-minded to the point of discrimination, and at worst downright cruel and bigoted.
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 12:27 pm
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What about women who have had a mastectomy and now wear a prosthetic? What are those made of?
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Old Aug 15, 2006, 12:27 pm
  #24  
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Originally Posted by pbiflyer
I would like to volunteer to be a water bra inspector. And yes, I would profile. I have always thought that terrorists would next use attractive women.

Better yet, I volunteer to monitor all females with saline or other gel implants and request that the parts of their body which have said implants be left exposed and observable throughout the flight.

^
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Old Aug 16, 2006, 2:20 am
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BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS with REMOVABLE SALINE BREAST PROSTHESIS(FALSIES)in their bra.

present an almost insurmountable problem for TSA if they REALLY want to remove any REAL THREAT.

On the one hand we face PUBLICLY HUMILIATING and demeaning hundreds of thousands of women who bear the horrible scars of having had their breasts cut off to try to save their lives and NOW they realistically COULD be required to remove the liquid or gel breast prosthesis from their bra that makes them look "normal" to people around them and parade in public as OBVIOUSLY DISFIGURED WITH ONLY ONE OR NO BREASTS. Something many cancer patients do not do even around their own family, and almost ALL never do even around friends and neighbors let alone STRANGERS!! How cruel this would be!!

BUT, IF TSA DOESN'T ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM, THEN IT BECOMES THE GUARANTEED NEXT METHOD TO SMUGGLE EXPLOSIVES ABOARD AN AIRCRAFT!! Terrorists only need one of their women who has had a REAL mastectomy or two to wear an instantly removable explosive gel filled prosthesis (or two)in her bra and they would have ALMOST TWO POUNDS OF EXPLOSIVE aboard the aircraft!!!

And, with the degree of male DOMINANCE Islamic males appear to have over their women, I would expect the most radical of them to even propose AN UNNECESSARY DOUBLE MASTECTOMY of one of their women, to assure the prostheses, if detected will be believed to be genuine, ordinary medical prostheses and pass security!!!

So, unless this problem IS addressed and addressed in a way that both preserves privacy, modesty and avoids humiliating cancer survivors and yet STILL VERIFYS those EXTERNAL, BRASSIERE WORN "FALSIES" are NOT carrying explosives then you are in just as much peril as if NOBODY WAS BEING SEARCHED AT ALL.
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Old Aug 16, 2006, 3:13 am
  #26  
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Originally Posted by AINITFUNNY
And, with the degree of male DOMINANCE Islamic males appear to have over their women, I would expect the most radical of them to even propose AN UNNECESSARY DOUBLE MASTECTOMY of one of their women, to assure the prostheses, if detected will be believed to be genuine, ordinary medical prostheses and pass security!!!
"Islamic males", "them", "their women". Anyone intimately familiar with so-called Islamic societies knows that "male DOMINANCE" is more myth than reality, or it is as real there as it is in "mainstream" Europe, the Americas, Africa and the rest of Asia. Also, women in many societies -- including many so-called Islamic ones -- do volunteer to engage in violence and don't need men to tell them to do so. So it might well be that a woman volunteers to be a suicide bomber. Two Caucasian women who were allegedly raped by security forces and blew themselves up on planes sure didn't have any problem volunteering to die and kill others not too long ago. And it had nothing to do with "surrendering" to "Islamic men". (Islamophobic bigotry seems to have a pretty "good" home in OMNI, if someone is in search of that.) Plenty of suicidal bombing females in "non-Islamic" parts of Asia too, including where women were in command positions. So it really has nothing to do with "Islamic male" "DOMINANCE".

That said, your point of items being smuggled past the TSA is well-taken. Given all the money spent and all the foreknowledge of just such methods, that better explosives detection tools were not developed and deployed exposes government incompetence and a failure of leadership. Too bad such governmental incompetence does not mean that the incompetent leaders will necessarily be held to account for their failings. So we'll simply get more of the same old security nonsense, just with more "pomp and circumstance" (aka dog and pony show).
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Old Aug 16, 2006, 3:23 am
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Oddly enough, today I was thinking that its only a matter of time before some sicko conceives of surgically implanting an explosive device in someone and having them set it off while on a plane. Oops.
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Old Aug 16, 2006, 3:28 am
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Originally Posted by Internaut
Oddly enough, today I was thinking that its only a matter of time before some sicko conceives of surgically implanting an explosive device in someone and having them set it off while on a plane. Oops.
More than surgical implants: plastic bagged items taped inside or held by clothes; anal/rectal, oral and vaginal cavity stored items; and swallowed items.
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Old Aug 16, 2006, 3:52 am
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Internaut and...

Originally Posted by GUWonder
More than surgical implants: plastic bagged items taped inside or held by clothes; anal/rectal, oral and vaginal cavity stored items; and swallowed items.
Your suggestions are NOT as real a threat as breast prosthesis is. WHY? Because if imaging or exams(YES they sometimes DO do intimate physical exams if other clues indicate that those exams are warranted) would detect what is OBVIOUSLY deliberately hidden contraband and it would not be permitted on the plane.

BUT.... A REAL breast prosthesis is NOT an "implant" and is not a "smuggled" or contraband item in the brassiere(even if it is found)! And, if the woman is verifyably a REAL mastectomy patient THE LARGE BAG(or bags) OF GEL WOULD NATURALLY BE ASSUMED TO BE A REAL, HARMLESS, MEDICAL PROSTHESIS FILLED WITH SALINE OR GEL AND WOULD PASS EXAMINATION AND SECURITY AND BE ALLOWED TO BE WORN INTO THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT! That saline or gel in a REAL breast prosthesis could easily be replaced with two pounds of gel explosive.
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Old Aug 16, 2006, 4:33 am
  #30  
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Originally Posted by AINITFUNNY
Internaut and...

Originally Posted by GUWonder
More than surgical implants: plastic bagged items taped inside or held by clothes; anal/rectal, oral and vaginal cavity stored items; and swallowed items.
Your suggestions are NOT as real a threat as breast prosthesis is. WHY? Because if imaging or exams(YES they sometimes DO do intimate physical exams if other clues indicate that those exams are warranted) would detect what is OBVIOUSLY deliberately hidden contraband and it would not be permitted on the plane.

BUT.... A REAL breast prosthesis is NOT an "implant" and is not a "smuggled" or contraband item in the brassiere(even if it is found)! And, if the woman is verifyably a REAL mastectomy patient THE LARGE BAG(or bags) OF GEL WOULD NATURALLY BE ASSUMED TO BE A REAL, HARMLESS, MEDICAL PROSTHESIS FILLED WITH SALINE OR GEL AND WOULD PASS EXAMINATION AND SECURITY AND BE ALLOWED TO BE WORN INTO THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT! That saline or gel in a REAL breast prosthesis could easily be replaced with two pounds of gel explosive.
Did I say a breast prosthesis was necessarily a surgical implant? No. Yes, some prosthetic device -- including breast-related ones -- filled with contraband is more of a "real threat" than surgical implants. Still, breast-related prosthetic gel-type devices are less often intercepted in smuggling than other methods, including those I've noted above. If breast-related prosthetics are the biggest threat, then it'll be women who'll be flagged even more by security. And to check what you seem to suggest needs to be checked through intrusive imaging and hands-on exams is still a stupid approach for aviation security. Better to have ETD-type technology than strip-type searches, virtual or otherwise. (By the way, the virtual stripsearch can be circumvented too, for I've seen it done. )

All the methods I've mentioned have been used to smuggle explosives before onto planes in the last 20 years. Such methods of smuggling as mentioned herein that have been intercepted certainly catch drugs more than explosives too. And yes, some breast prosthesis has been used to smuggle before.

Originally Posted by AINITFUNNY
Your suggestions are NOT as real a threat as breast prosthesis is. WHY? Because if imaging or exams(YES they sometimes DO do intimate physical exams if other clues indicate that those exams are warranted) would detect what is OBVIOUSLY deliberately hidden contraband and it would not be permitted on the plane.
Imaging and exams used in aviation security will routinely miss what I've noted above. And so obviously deliberately hidden contraband (but not obvious to the eye of the "watchers" until actually found ) will routinely -- with a small percentage of exceptions -- get past airport and airline security. It certainly gets past customs, even when they use more extensive methods of imaging and exams than that available to security screeners. So while obviously deliberately hidden contraband would not be permitted on the plane by the authorities, it will get on the plane too by the methods I mentioned.

By the way, a mastectomy need not be involved for women to use breast prosthetics of the sort you mentioned. After all, most gel-filled ones sold by retailers are used by women who have never had a mastectomy.

So much for the "Islamic males" proposing "AN UNNECESSARY DOUBLE MASTECTOMY" of "one of 'their' women" theory.

Last edited by GUWonder; Aug 16, 2006 at 4:50 am
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