Karl Klockars

Before we begin, do I have to explain the whole full-body screening thing to anyone?  Yes?  Over there, in the back, with your hand raised?  You haven’t heard?  Fine.  We’ll give you a cliffs notes.  A couple weeks ago some guy did something bad on an airplane and almost blew it up and now we need a bunch of machines that we’ve been talking about since forever to go into all our airports and look at us naked.  Got it?  Good.

Yes, I can totally see why anyone would be concerned about someone getting too excited about this.

If you’ve been following the collective freakout about this huge intrusion of our rights and our privacy being raped and so on, you know that it took a few days for people to make up their minds about whether or not we needed to be upset.  It was a fun week or so while the right wing circled themselves saying “but we need to be safe” and “we need to protect ourselves” and “but it happened on the new President’s watch” and “Obama wants to see us naked” and “OH GOOD LORD OUR RIGHTS ARE BEING TRAMPLED.”

And many an argument has taken place about the TSA and how stupid they are and Big Sister wants to see you naked and all this ridiculous jazz.  And there’s one or two angles that aren’t being discussed here.  First of all, let’s dive headfirst into this one:  Naked people are extremely boring.

I’m not talking about peeking into some starlet’s dressing room, and I’m not talking about 7 to 12 minutes of pornography at a stretch.  I’m talking about looking at digitized images of naked human beings for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, maybe more with overtime.

Tell you what - just look at this picture for 6 hours and tell me how excited you are by it at the end.

Here’s a thought experiment.  Think of a different naked person every 5 seconds.  Not a good looking naked person.  Just your average American (define as you see fit).  Think about seeing a new one every 5 seconds.  Now repeat that for another 5,760 times.  That’s just one day.  No one is thinking about how mind-numbingly boring it’s going to be to have to stare at this screen for a full shift.  I’d go frisk a grandma for her nailclippers just because I needed something to break the monotony.

And here’s the other thing – even if you’re the type of sexual deviant that would jump through all those government hoops to get a terrible TSA job just to sit behind that screen day in and day out…it’s just big blobs of data.  It’s not a goddamned X-Ray-Specs machine.  You don’t turn into superman.  You get a blue smear that has nipples on it.  You’re going to be sorely disappointed.  But hey, nice uniform.

Second point:  Why do we have so much built up excess self esteem that makes us all seem to think that anyone wants to see us naked in the first place?  You know that old line, “I’m going to like this even less than you are?”  Or “This hurts me more than it hurts you?”  Chances are this gig will be a great diet helper more than anything else.  The most recent numbers I saw have us pegged at a full third of us being obese.  Again: You want to look at that all day, every day?  I doubt you’re going to stare at fat naked blobs of American and then wander down the terminal to get a reheated gyros with extra tzaziki.  No, you’ll take the side salad and be better off for it.

Why are we so fixated on the idea that we are worth looking at naked?  That they are going to find each of us so special that each screen shot is going to get snapped by a cell phone camera and end up on the internet?  Even if the Swedish Bikini Team parades through security one at a time and each individual scan gets saved and put on the internet – it’s still a scan.  It could be anyone.

You can clearly see the butt of the gun...the...her...butt...never mind.

I get it, I get it.  “That’s not the point!  The government shouldn’t have the right to wahwahwahwah wahwahwhwa” Sorry, I stopped paying attention to you.  Because I am tired of taking off my shoes.  I am tired of removing my belt.  (I do kind of enjoy watching everyone else take off their shoes, like we’re all going to get into the same bouncy-castle or ballpit together, but that’s just me.)  If the worst thing that happens to you that day is that you get through a security line quicker and you get a little self-conscious about that beer-belly paunch, then maybe it’ll motivate you to quit drinking so much and go for a job, lunchbox.

And I am perhaps not the most ratcheted up person when it comes to nudity.  Which is why I am suggesting that we all take a day when it gets warmer out to just ditch these hangups and wander around naked all day.  Not on a work day where you have to deal with people you actually know.  Just like, a random Sunday.  Where you laze around on the couch and watch some TV and maybe go to the store for some breakfast items and then run out for a 6′er before you watch Mad Men via On Demand.  That kind of fully naked day.

Even if you’re not game, I am.  So if you see someone wandering the northwest side of Chicago buck-assed nekkid one springtime Sunday afternoon, don’t freak out.  It’s just me.  And when the cops ask me all about what the hell I think I’m doing, I’ll point them straight to this post right before they beat the holy hell out of me for being one of them freaks that think they’re better than anyone else.