9781626569768

by our media and our political and economic systems is a terrifying way to
live, and yet millions of people exist in this constant state of fear every day.
It is an act of terrorism against our bodies to perpetuate body shame and to
support body-based oppression. I call this “body terrorism.”
Terrorism is defined as “the systematic use of terror especially as a
means of coercion.” 39 It takes no more than a brief review of the historic
and present-day examples of media manipulation and legislative oppression
to acknowledge that we are indeed being coerced into body shame for both
economic and political reasons. When using the term body terrorism, I have
been met with resistance and accused of hyperbole. “You are being
dismissive of the danger of ‘real’ terrorism,” detractors have said. This
knee-jerk response to our understanding of terrorism is shaped by a public
discourse that continues to separate the fear and violence we navigate every
day in our bodies from the more overtly political violence we see happening
around the world. We must not minimize or negate the impact of being told
to hate or fear our bodies and the bodies of others. Living in a society
structured to profit from our self-hate creates a dynamic in which we are so
terrified of being ourselves that we adopt terror-based ways of being in our
bodies. All this is fueled by a system that makes large quantities of money
off our shame and bias. These experiences are not divergent but
complementary.
On the morning of the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump I was
leaving Washington, DC, after hosting an event called the Peace Ball the
night before. When I arrived at the airport and proceeded through the body
scanner, I was stopped for additional screening. Apparently, my groin area
had signaled the machine’s alert system, and I was going to be subjected to
a pat down. This was not my first time navigating TSA screening
procedures. I am, after all, a fat Black woman with the word radical in her
job title on her business cards. The TSA agent rubbed her hands up my
inner thigh and without warning rubbed my vulva. My response was
involuntary. “Why are you touching my vagina?” I blurted out loud enough
for the entire security line to hear. Confounded by my outburst, the TSA
agent quickly called for her supervisor, who demanded that I be taken to a
private screening room where I would be less disruptive as the agents
groped my genitalia. Powerless, I wept silently as the agent completed the
pat down, and then I exited the private room, shaken by a deep sense of
violation. I had been sexually assaulted—simply in order to be able carry on