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I look like a junkie. The insides of my elbows are peppered with bruises, stick marks and more than a little suspicious orange residue. Why, you ask?
I donated blood. It wasn’t my first time, nor will it be my last, though this was the first time it involved some serious digging, and I don’t mean the sexually explicit questions you are asked beforehand.
Rather, it was the kind of digging that involves a small steel pipe and a very sneaky vein. Was it my fault my veins like to slither away once spotted? As I lay there becoming a pirate map, I had to think to myself about all the times I’ve had my blood taken and all of the times my veins retreated “Jaws”-style.
There has been many a nurse who has rolled her eyes at me and stabbed repeatedly until the blood filling the test tube wasn’t so much coming from the tube as it was collecting at the bottom of my elbow. While in this most recent moment I was semi-used to the sensation, after recalling how the first few times played out, on this day I felt violated.
I was coming in for one thing — a blood test — and instead was probed like a science experiment. While twirling a needle beneath your skin isn’t exactly grounds for molestation, it’s still startling.
At no point did I say aloud, “Really just do whatever you like, I mean, you’re wearing gloves so it’s probably fine,” and then sycophantically smile away as they took 10 minutes to find a blue squiggle. The stinging gave way to a bigger issue: personal space, something we can never have too much of.
In dorms it’s a war for it, on buses there’s an outcry, on airplanes people pay top dollar for approximately six more inches of space and yet now it’s law to violate it.
The pat-downs administered to passengers in airports have been met with an outburst of negativity. Not surprisingly, people don’t want to be manhandled. You can’t even sneeze near someone without a dirty look. Add an ass-grab to the end of that and see how things pan out.
The terribly serious side of things is that people with histories of sexual abuse are being thrown into these situations and forced to relive any violation they may have suppressed. Plain and simple, this is a violation of the fourth amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure. But more than that, it’s creepy.
It’s handing over your body to someone wearing gloves, all because of the elusive blue squiggle. Whether it be pumping a vital life source through you, or just a hair elastic in your pocket that came up suspicious on a screen, out come the gloves to play in your personal space.
All the photos I’ve seen of the process involve some grumpy man’s butt being squeezed by the blue plastic hands of an even grumpier-looking person. Stories of snide remarks and sexually aggressive ogling have also surfaced, and it’s sadly no surprise. You give any average Joe the license to cup at will and there will be those that abuse the privilege. It’s unfortunate.
If I bump into someone while spacing out, my face flushes. Hell, I’ve accidentally brushed crotches enough times to know it’s the sort of thing you internally gasp about and then walk away from.
So what is it that makes this OK? What makes that doctor unabashedly squeeze and pinch? Their degree?
Yes, the paper on the wall makes everything seem much more professional, but no one looks forward to a physical just the same. Now the people that have to full-body grope you while your luggage is at arm’s distance don’t have a wall with their kid’s drawings on it to quell your fears.
I lay there, on the slab, looking up as people run around the track and watched my Red Cross aide play pin-the-vein-on-the-redhead. Maybe it’s time for us to take up a proper argument. There’s no reason to be ashamed of being uncomfortable and if that’s what we’re forced to feel, then that’s not the violated person’s issue.
The airports, like the table, are forums, and not being quiet is the first great step. The gloves need to come off on both sides.
Sarah Mann is a fourth-year English student. Her columns will appear every Monday.
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