Italy overturns controversial bottom-pinching ruling

Ananova ^ | Monday 7th July 2003

[presidio9]

Italy's High Court has overturned a controversial ruling that decreed that pinching a woman's bottom was not a crime.

The new decision, by a panel of judges sitting in Rome, means that pinching a woman's bottom is classed as sexual assault.

The judges said: ''Fondling buttocks, unquestionably constitutes a sexual act because the perpetrator commits a substantive and concrete intrusion into the victim's sexual sphere. Such acts, albeit superficial, amount to assault.''

The new ruling is a complete U-turn on a decision issued in January 2001 which said that it was not a crime for a man to pinch or touch a woman's bottom provided it was a ''sudden and isolated action.''

[boomop1]

There goes my vacation plans, shoot.

[ffusco]

Common sense in Europe! WOW. Though I doubt this will prevent any would be Lotharios!

[Da_Shrimp]

the victim's sexual sphere

Shouldn't that be 'spheres'?

[presidio9]

Fear not. Italian men won't give up on the practice so easliy. My 89 year-old grandmother returned from Italy pleased that someone cared.

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[VoiceOfBruck]

Goosing a stranger was illegal, then it was legal, now it's not again.

How can one take these people seriously?

[ffusco]

LOL, she must be quite a woman to receive such approval!

[ffusco]

Who takes goosing seriously?

[presidio9]

Who takes goosing seriously?

It is my observation that the people who get the most worked up over harassment like this are precisely the ones with nothing to worry about.

[ffusco]

Sad, but true.

[mondonico]

"It is my observation that the people who get the most worked up over harassment like this are precisely the ones with nothing to worry about."

Maybe that's because they recognize the power over men attractive women have, and since they don't have that power themselves, they seek to deny it to others.

[presidio9]

Perish the thought.

[kylaka]

Who takes goosing seriously?

Liberal Democrats .... if the gooser is Bob Packwood.

[cyborg]

Plain old fashion jealousy... that's my fellow women for ya.

[presidio9]

Not that I am endorsing "bottom-pinching," but it is my recollection that Italy felt the need to address this issue legally not at the behest of some sore-fannied victim, but due to pressure from feminist groups. It is my prediction that now Italian will ever be prosecuted for "bottom-pinching." For better or for worse, it's part of their culture.