Will Your Sex Toys Pass Airport Security?

There are so many challenges to holiday air travel - not the least the weather, the stale cabin air and getting your dildo through security.

I remember the first time I entered Israel in the late 1970s. Their airport security had that sensibility of post-9/11 Homeland Security decades before 9/11, racial profiling and all. I had reluctantly stored all of my sex toys with a friend in the States (who sold them for a fix, I found out later) and had only packed a modest bullet vibrator - I didn't want to be alone on another continent, utterly bereft of stimulation.

They did go through every item in my bag and when the security wonk found the candy-stripe battery-operated vibrator, I explained that as a professional athlete (I was a martial arts instructor at the time), it was essential therapy for my muscular health. That story worked.

Things are so different now than those days in the 70s when you could assume a lot of people didn't know from sex toys. There weren't stores (or those that existed were considered too sleazy for "nice" folks.) There was no internet. Sex workshop were not ubiquitous. It was a different world. People were still perplexed by the question of what two women might do together sexually, for gawd's sake.

So how do things stand now, here? I've just read an article by David Steinberg telling the story of how airport security searched his sex toy bag. I was turned onto this piece by Joan Price, whose important blog "Better Than I Ever Expected: Sex and Aging" I've mentioned a number of times over the years.

Here's an excerpt from Steinberg:

"The stern, older woman watching the screen backs up the belt and stops my bag under the x-ray. She points at the screen, showing her young, blonde assistant what to look for. I'm in a good mood, not too close to flight time, and find myself smiling to a traveling companion who's taking the same flight, and looking forward to a little good theatrical fun.

"Is it all right if I look in this bag?" the attendant asks with measured politeness.

"Sure, if you really want to," I answer.

I watch her face as she digs through the cuffs, the latex straps, the blindfold, the ziplock bag with condoms, rubber gloves and lube, the ziplock bag with miscellaneous nipple clamps, butt plug, and so forth, Mark Chester's wonderful spandex full-body bondage bag (if you don't have one, you should, but that's another story), the wonderful soft leather scratch gloves with the sharp metal points scattered across the palm and fingers. Her face stays 100% deadpan throughout, an impressive show of professionalism...

...Finally she finds what she's looking for -- what I knew she would get to sooner or later -- my springy little whip with the 6" metal handle..."

Steinberg goes on to describe his amusement, especially when he was ordered to drop the whip into a plastic bag and check it as a separate piece of luggage.

What about you? Have you packed your sex toys for your holiday travel or do the holidays turn off every shred of potential desire? If you're taking something that needs power, have you been sure to take out the batteries to avoid a suspicious buzzing under your seat? Have you tried for sex toys that look more like toys than sex, like the rubber duckie vibrator in the photo? Why not just pack your toys - especially if there's any metal involved - into the bag you're checking, instead of dragging them through security? If you must carry something onboard, are you prepared to stand up for your predilictions or have you already devised a brilliant cover story?

"Those clamps? I'm a writer and they're for holding my manuscripts together."

"Those cuffs? I work on a computer and they protect me against RWI - repetitive wrist inflammation."

"That red ball on a strap? My neice is teething so my sister asked me to buy her one of these."

I'd love to hear your plans, what gear you're packing and your approach to security. Will it be as confident and in-your-face as this David Steinberg? He wrote:

"I look at all the people around me and feel like the whole airport -- passengers, ticket agents, security guards -- are giving me the benefit of the doubt on this one, at least in part because I'm refusing to have it any other way. My lack of embarrassment, my lack of apology, is defining the moment and telling everyone how to respond. I feel exceptionally powerful. It is the liberation of one more level of coming out, of refusing to be made wrong for being different, for being sexually different."

Comments

[David Steinberg]

Hi Sue. Thanks for linking to my airport security story, and adding stories and perspectives of your own. I'm told by people who do airport security work that dealing with sex toys has become fairly routine for them -- at least in places like San Francisco and Seattle. -- David Steinberg

[Allen Young]

I'm so vanilla, it's embarrassing, but I enjoyed the article.

[David Thorstad]

I've gotten through life without a single sex toy, which, in view of your piece, seems remarkably unexperimental. Some of my best friends, though... Loved the airport story.

[Sue Katz]

David and Allen, Sex toys sure don't make the lover - vanilla or otherwise. They're like additional spices - the meal can be filling, hearty and delicious without them.

But I'd like to see the Cossack (Xmas reference) who would try to separate me from my Magic Wand vibrator!

[Liz Sheffield]

I hear Boston is slated to get full body scanners in 2010...this is great news...I can share the beauty of my gorgeous genital piercings with others

[Sue Katz]

Do your genital piercings ever set off the metal detectors Liz? I've always been curious about that (and nipple piercings too).

[Liz Sheffield]

In all of the air travel that I have done since 2003-04, never once have my piercings set off the detectors. One is 14k gold and the other is 18k. I don't foresee any problems in the future. I don't have nipple piercings so I can't comment about that.

[Liz Sheffield]

In reference to your comment about your Hitachi magic wand...I can't agree with you more. It's the best vibrator on the planet and gawd forbid I ever need to go into a nursing home...it's coming with me!

[Sex Toys]

Here are some very good tips to explain about your sex toys during the airport security. which Would be very helpful to pass the security check in the airport.

[Adult Toys Australia]

well thanks for sharing your story, there are toys that are not obvious noticeable as sex toys, and thanks for the tips to bypass this security issues in the airport.

[SF Sex Toy]

Love the bit on the bondage cuffs being for working on the computer. Sweet.

[sex toys for men]

I love the duck sex toy. It's kinda cute and not harmful.

[Kaicee Love]

There is a great website that I have ordered from a couple times and they have a large variety of discreet sex toys... My favorite one is a blush brush vibrator which has been passed several times in my makeup bag lol
www.adultsextoys.com
hope this helps!

[adult sex toys]

The really good news here is that the public has so much more information about body safe materials and I find that they are better educated about the products.

[G-spot Vibrators]

Why not? How can vibrators be used as weapons?