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Nov 27, 2012 
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The one thing I take away from Stewart Baker's extremely unsettling extended sexual metaphor about opposition to the TSA is that the man is very frustrated.
Mr. Baker — a self-described "privacy skeptic and national security conservative" — is frustrated at his inability to comprehend all of that nasty opposition to the TSA. He seizes upon a belabored sexual analogy: TSA lines give us (him) performance anxiety, causing us to fumble about, alarmed at any change in routine, thwarting us from the smooth, economical physical movements that, Astaire-like, make us sexually irresistible to virginal women. No, really. No, damn it, I'm serious, go read it yourself. There. I told you.
Baker, surrounded by a tissue of lies about TSA opponents and a double handful of the balm of self-regard, flogs that metaphor raw, but is unable to conclude it satisfactorily. He dreams of a TSA that would post encouraging signs to us that we're doing fine, just fine, steadily building in tempo, moving us towards the end of the security line, until we shoot with a relieved sigh out of it all over the Sbarro Express.
Perhaps Mr. Baker is frustrated because there are no real women in this analogy. Oh, there's the fictional woman in the novel quote from the lede, and the other fictional women who would recommence jumping the bones of red-blooded American men everywhere if the TSA would put up a few signs to make us feel better about how long we lasted in line. But there are no real women in his analogy; he dismissed them with a hand-wave: "I can’t explain the women who hate TSA with a passion, though I’m not sure how many there are. Anti-TSA sites and comments have a distinct whiff of testosterone."
That would be a surprise to, say, Amy Alkon, who was threatened with a lawsuit by a TSA agent for having the temerity to complain about having fingers thrust into her during a search. It would be a surprise to women harassed over their breast milk by TSA agents too stupid or careless to know their own policies, or these women forced to remove prosthetic breasts, or this woman forced to expose her gastric tube to gawking polyster-clad subnormals, or this rape survivor cupped and groped and probed by TSA "professionals," or this woman told to remove her nipple rings, or any of these women. I'm pretty sure they aren't critics of the TSA because of some sort of surge of testosterone.
And yet I'm being unfair — to the women. Women don't just criticize the TSA because some of them are getting groped and harassed and abused. Women, as much as men, love liberty. Women, like men, love America. Women love America, and they're skeptical if the proposition that, if America is in such grave danger that we must surrender rights to save it, we should be surrendering rights to the sort of people who get recruited by ads on pizza boxes. Women — as you'll know if you're in a relationship with one — question things. Among the thing they question: why should we trust the TSA's statement that these measures are effective, or necessary? Why should we accept the logical fallacy that these measures work because there have been no more terrorist attacks on planes? How do we know this isn't merely more security theater? Why is the TSA steadily increasing its power over more and more avenues of American travel? How can we possibly yield to an agency that openly believes that it is entitled to unquestioning compliance from Americans? How is the canine obedience of government demanded by "national security conservatives" reconcilable with actual conservatism? What kind of Americans would we be if we just said "sure, Department of Homeland Security, whatever you say?"
But Mr. Baker won't address those questions, perhaps because he is impotent to do so. Instead he dismisses the questioning women entirely, and the questioning and criticizing men with labels: hostile. Visceral. Spittle-flecked. Junior-high-school rebellion mode. Beta Males all! Not Alphas, like him, who woo the ladies with his principled support of being touched by strangers in public.
Mr. Baker's Fifty Shades of TSA fantasy coincides with recent pushback against criticism, both by outside surrogates and by the TSA's own Baghdad Bob, who showed up at Amy Alkon's blog to chide her for her criticisms:
Part of what makes this country great is that we can openly complain on blogs such as this one, but I think it’s only fair that the blogger in question should be fair and accurate about what they write about and also consider the privacy of the individuals involved. After all, these individuals are doing the job the way they’ve been trained to do it.
No doubt he's exactly right. That's the problem. Maybe we should yield to Mr. Baker's suggestions and train them as fluffers, too.
Hat tip: Scott and Mark for their takes and Max for the Fifty Shades line.
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