A friend of mine just went through all this - for some reason she was actually singled out to be patted down even though she went through the screening (she thinks that the thing that detects fumes might have been triggered because she had just done her nails). She said that it was NOT groping at all - that a woman TSA agent brought her into a private room and took forever to explain the pat-down to her. She said "I had to stand there with my arms out, then hold my hair out of the way, and she checked under the collar of my shirt, patted down arms and sides , circled around my chest area with the back of her hand, ran the back of her hand up the inside of my legs, and ran her hand around the waistband of my jeans. I wear low rise pants so that may have been the most invasive of all the procedures, but even that was not uncomfortable or anything, she was wearing gloves as well. Then, they took swabs of my stuff, took that somewhere, and then checked my bags. Was it slightly annoying? Yes. Was it at all inappropriate or involve any "groping?" Not at all. There is absolutely no "cupping," "fondling," or any of the other words used when it comes to the pat down. It was simply that, a pat down. "
