If you or your loved ones are traveling by air this week, you probably know about new Full Monty imaging technology at security gates. It has become a sensitive issue for some Americans, who, unlike, say, the French, have reservations about flashing their private regions to strangers.

But let’s not overreact. During this busy travel season, everyone needs to stay calm and remember that human dignity is one of those airline extras, like dinner, that we don’t really need.

The good news is that the Transportation Security Administration is showing impressive flexibility by letting individual passengers pick the method of degradation that best fits their needs.

The most popular option is a full-body electronic scan that “sees” through your clothing and bombards you with “low” levels of radiation no stronger than what you’d receive while conducting routine maintenance on the reactor core of a Trident submarine.

Some passengers have voiced concerns about where these images will end up, but I’m comfortable it will all be handled — poor verb choice, I know — responsibly. Federal safeguards have been established to assure that the only parties authorized to receive e-mail blasts of your radioactive privates will be Lindsay Lohan and her treatment team, 500 million Facebook users, Hamas, the IRS, Karl Rove, Google, Vladimir Putin, “Survivor” host Jeff Probst and Mexican drug lord El Chapo. Additionally, the TSA is working closely with President-elect Sarah Palin to assure that only authorized TSA personnel know that the password to the agency’s all-nude passenger database is OODLESOFNOODLES44.

Don’t want to be scanned? No problem. The alternative is to allow a complete stranger to run his or her hands over your body, including your most intimate zones such as your larynx. I’m not sure why anyone sees this as a problem. Some businesses right here in Syracuse charge $100 or more for the same thing.

Rather than throw a temper tantrum, all of us should take comfort in knowing that these security pat-downs are conducted by specially trained TSA screeners — ultra-intellectual types who would otherwise be conducting the world’s great orchestras, solving global warming and developing an artificial pancreas but are instead so driven to foil terrorism that they’re willing to feel you up for $11 an hour. A little gratitude by the flying public during the federal groping protocol would make the probes more pleasant and help speed you and your horribly violated underclothes to your next three-hour flight delay.

What is NOT helpful are rude comments to screeners such as the one made by a passenger in San Diego who declared, “You touch my junk I’ll have you arrested.” A more cheerful interaction with the federal employee would be to hum the Star Spangled Banner during the pat-down and tell him or her, “Thank you OOO OOO YOWZA for keeping America strong.”

Also, you can never go wrong with a dozen red roses.

Meanwhile, let’s all wish my parents the best as they’re scheduled to get on a plane tonight in Seattle to travel to Syracuse. I’d like to alert TSA officials in Seattle that the mysterious object in my Dad’s pants is not a dangerous device. It’s his hernia.

Jeff Kramer's humor column runs Mondays in CNY. Reach him at jeffmkramer@gmail.com.