So the big Thanksgiving airport opt-out opted-in after all. Widespread "regimental" kilt-wearing never materialized. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers were, by and large, spared a plague of True Scotsmen.

But they weren't entirely spared—and one "big-boned" patriot decided to strike his blow for freedom by giving a low-paid TSA screener the surprise of his young life.

On November 18, a "fat middle aged" blogger who goes by SubliminalPanda entered the TSA checkpoint at the Raleigh-Durham airport in North Carolina. He was wearing a kilt. This wasn't merely a lark; SubliminalPanda had taken to the comfort of the kilt months ago, and the garment had since become his daily clothing of choice. And when you find some clothing that comfortable, do you muck up the whole experience by yanking on some underwear? No you do not.

SubliminalPanda opted out of the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) body scan (read our primer on the tech behind these machines) and chose the pat-down instead. The TSA told Ars last month that its procedures for dealing with the kilted-and-sporraned traveler were a matter of national security and could not be divulged. This seemed at least a tiny bit odd; having someone go through the procedure and then report on it would provide much of this information. Which is where SubliminalPanda comes in.

Officer Gill met me at the patdown area—a glass-enclosed area to the left of the AIT. There were the usual chairs and mat with the paired footprints in the middle of them. I dutifully assumed the position as he introduced himself. I wondered if I was getting a corsage? Candy? Maybe just a little dirty talk first? Gill was a kid—he couldn’t have been more than twenty-three years old. He sheepishly and nervously admitted that he was new to the TSA and that I was his first patdown. Poor bastard, losing his virginity to a middle aged fat man in a kilt. The enhanced patdown is very much like a consensual rape. The screener asks before touching each body part with the back of his hand. “I’m going to put my hand between your beltline and belly, is that okay?” Obviously, the only correct answer here was yes. I could have said no, but that meant that I’d be hitch hiking to Chicago if I wasn’t arrested and charged with a fine. So Officer Gill starts with my backside, then chest and belly. After that, I stretched my arms out, and we finished the upper body. He then took a courageous breath and steeled his reserve, asking me to step forward with my left foot. This was it Gen X’ers, remember the old commercials for Milton Bradley’s Operation game? In the game, players take turns using metal tongs to remove plastic pieces from an electrified board with the shape of a man on it. If the tongs touch metal surrounding the piece’s cutout, the board makes a loud buzzing noise and the patient’s nose glows with a red light. “Don’t touch the sides!” warns one of the kids in the commercial. That’s the enhanced patdown, essentially. With blue latex gloves on, the backside of Gill’s hand caressed my ankles and calf. The hand moved up my knee and vanished along my inner thigh, under the kilt... Buddafingahs! Had I a light bulb for a nose, it would have glowed.

The entire post is well worth a read, though I have to confess feeling real empathy for Officer Gill. What a way to make a living (and one suspects this was not the strangest experience Officer Gill has had in the weeks since).

While the TSA's recently "enhanced" pat-downs have spawned calls for commando-style kilt-wearing (and much, much worse), the issue has of course been a live one for years. Pat-downs may have been less invasive in the past, but they were still done in some cases, and the screeners could still be baffled by the sight of a man in a "skirt." For instance, one traveller recounted a 2009 airport experience involving kilts on the flyertalk forums this way:

I'm in line at Terminal E's main TSA checkpoint at IAH [Houston's main airport] and there are two gentlemen about 10-12 spots in front of me in line wearing kilts. No one is actually paying them much extra attention (and I have seen men in kilts before at IAH and other US airports) and we all continue toward the belts/bins One of the "kilted" men was chosen for a random (as he did not alarm) secondary it seems; they had “placed” him into their magic plexiglass cube of indignity to do the pat down. Here is where it gets funny. I wait by the belt and slowly put my shoes on so I can hear and watch some of the fun. The TSOgre says immediately, and I quote EXACTLY, "Why you wearin’ a skirt, bro?" The kilted traveler just kind of stood in a stunned silence. The TSOgre proceeds to pat the front and back of the torso down but then stops at the waist and calls a supervisor. Mister pay band F supervisor shows up and the TSA’s finest continue to chat about how to pat down the lower body. The line lackey TSOgre suggested the gentleman raise his kilt (no, I am not kidding ), to which the band F supervisor actually says, “That is not a good idea”. At this point the other kilted man had put his shoes back on and walked away and I had to go as well. When I left the kilted traveler was laughing and in good spirits.

Another intrepid kilt-wearer confirms that the old TSA pat-downs were a bit less aggressive; "junk" was left unmolested. Michael Hanscom regularly wears (and flies in) a kilt, and he wears it commando.

This past summer, though, as I was flying up to Anchorage from Seattle, I was pulled aside after going through the metal detector for a patdown. I was surprised, especially when the TSA screener told be that I was pulled aside specifically because I wore the kilt... The pat-down itself was about what I’d expect of a normal pat-down — thorough enough, with a quick run of the hands up my legs and under the kilt, but not so thorough that the screener knew whether or not I was commando. No fondling was involved, though there was a cursory brush-down of the front of the kilt that jostled things around a bit. A bit surprising, but at the time, I just shrugged it off.

So, for the curious, some questions have been answered. Yes, men do wear kilts through US airports. Yes, those kilts are sometimes worn commando. Yes, this can confuse and/or embarrass TSA agents. And yes, thanks to the new pat-downs, resistance may be encountered whether or not you're wearing skivvies. Now you know.