EcoLogics

A remarkable experiment in public nudity—and the invasion of one’s most private space—is happening at Manchester Airport, in northern England. The experiment is being carried out by Manchester City Airports Group Plc (‘MAG’), a holding company owned by the ten metropolitan borough councils of Greater Manchester.

The experiment involves inviting you to go through an x-ray machine that will, in effect, take your clothes off, ostensibly to spare you the embarrassment of being ‘patted down’ when you go through airport security. An officer that you can’t see, sitting in an office at one remove from the booth where you will be stripped, will then be able to see all of you.

The mainstream media are being very careful not to show the detail in which your breasts, penis or vulva will be visible, but have no doubt: you will effectively be stripped naked by the Manchester Airport x-ray machine, and you are being asked to believe that the images will be anonymous, and not subject to any kind of manipulation, publication, or exploitation (As if we hadn’t heard that before…)

The quid pro quo—the ‘exchange’—is based on the following formula: you willingly take your clothes off—or rather, we take them off for you—and we (the airport security guards, but more generally, the Manchester City Airports Group Plc) won’t touch you.

Sound perverse? It is, and EcoLogics will have a lot more to say about it, soon. In the meantime, vote with your feet, or rather, your itinerary: avoid Manchester Airport.