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I have some fairly serious metal in both my nipples (5mm width bars) and my penis(1x8mm width bars) and scrotum(3x5mm bars).
I've been through many, many metal detectors in Europe and they're mostly set to a reasonable level whereby they aren't triggered by my piercings.
However, I've had two little experiences outside of the wave-through...
1) Provincial Polish airport, bored guard. He basically decided to practise his English and piss me off at the same time. Went through all of my belongings, asked what several devices were:
Laptop (not kidding)
MP3 player (not kidding)
Multi-card flash reader
PSP
etc.
He then proceeded to demand that i boot up the laptop, became almost outraged when a screen came up to choose which of the OS' to boot into and then thought he'd be able to get me to give him my password. When I told him there was no way I was giving him the password to one or any of the OS' and that this had gone far enough, he winked and told me to carry on.
My piercings didn't set anything off there...
2) Going through a provincial Spanish airport (Zaragoza), all of the electronic goods separated and screened, boots off, belt off, etc. Piercings set off the buzzer.
Pulled aside, the guard used the hand scanner on me, which obviously went off over my nipples. He raised his eyebrows, I raised my jumper (yes, in northern spain it gets pretty chilly for December/January) and saw his surprise and then amusement. He carried on with his handscan, which went off over my penis.
Everyone was looking now. The guard looked at me, I looked at him with a "well what did you really expect, given these up here?" + smile kinda look.
At first he didn't know what to do, so I tightened my jeans around the piercing, which clearly showed up what it is.... at which point he just laughed, smiled and waved me through, shaking his head.
Much laughter all round, but given a tight-arse in his place, it could have been a strip search or worse. :s
Oh!
3) A manual hand sweep scan thing beeped over my penis in Finland one time... I took out the bar (not my penis) right there in the queue, showed it to the guy who said "ok, ok... go on..." waving me away.
still... this kind of petty authority - which saves no-one from ceramic knives, for example - is worrying to say the least.
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"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--
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