1. Can the category 'culture' (or religion) be used?	​The culture category can be used when the behaviour comes from a member of certain groups, where the practice is commonly adopted in the context of displays of affection towards one's children/grandchildren or for other cultural purposes. In this case we are faced with a cultural genital kissing/caressing/touching, but not a sexual genital kissing/caressing/touching.
2. Description of the cultural (or religious) practice and group.	Kissing, caressing and touching the genitals of children is a widespread cultural practice in different human groups. Depending on the group, the behaviour affects both male and female children, or only male children, and has various phenomenologies: widespread kissing and caressing over the whole genital area; single kisses on the child's penis; bringing the child's penis to the mouth and sucking it lightly; finger tickling on the genitals; massaging, manipulation, hickeys, rubbing. In some cases, family members take pictures of the above-mentioned gestures to put them in the family album or display them in the home. The age of the child on whom the behaviour is practised varies from 0 to 6 years, but may extend beyond. The subjects giving the kisses are usually the parents. Depending on the group it may be only the fathers, mothers or both, but it may also be grandparents, uncles, and, in the case of genital greetings, other extended family members. Cultural genital kissing or cultural genital caressing is a behaviour totally devoid of sexual intent. A case of kissing the baby's genitals is the metzitzah b'peh. The religious practice of Jewish circumcision may be sealed by a kiss, with which the mohel (circumciser) sucks the baby's blood and disinfects the wound. This is an oral sucking that is still employed by some orthodox Jewish groups, although with increasing rarity, used in place of the official dressing (so far this cultural practice has never been confused with a sexual act). The practice in its various manifestations is aimed at different purposes depending on the group: greeting the child; expressing affection; cuddling the child; expressing total acceptance of the child; relaxing the child and putting him to sleep; expressing pride in the male child (see entry in this Guidebook, 'homage to the child's penis'). In some groups (e.g. Italy, Spain) the gesture can be said to be a cultural habit that the parent puts in place naturally and is assimilated to any other kiss given on any other part of the child's body that serves to show affection. In some groups (e.g. Afghanistan), the practice serves to express the utmost love and acceptance of the child: the rationale is that a child's penis is seen as an unclean point of the body, being the point from which the child urinates. Kissing one's child/grandchild on the penis or putting it in one's mouth shows how much a father/grandfather/uncle loves the child precisely because it is not the 'holiest and cleanest part of the body'. Parents use to take pictures while putting the child's penis in their mouth. Those pictures are then placed in the family album as any other souvenir of the child’ life. In some groups (e.g. Albania, Bulgaria), the practice takes on the function of 'homage to the child's genitals' in that placing one's child's penis in one's mouth serves to express pride in the child who will perpetuate the family name and a celebration of virility (see the entry 'homage to the child's penis' in this Guidebook). In other groups (e.g. Roma, Italy, Spain) the practice has the so-called function of gendering the child, i.e. making the child aware of his or her male or female gender in order to prepare him or her for his or her future reproductive life (Tesăr 2012). In these cases, the practice is supported by phrases of praise towards the genitals such as "che bel pisellino/che bella patatina" (what a beautiful pea/willy (for the boy)/what a beautiful little potatoe (for the girl) (Italy); "que huevecitos (what little eggs)/que chocho mas bonito (what a beautiful vulvette)" (Spain). Depending on the group, the values underlying the practice are those of total physical relationship with the child's body, of unconditional affection towards the child, of fertility, of having male children capable of perpetuating the name. Kisses and caresses on the genitals of boys and/or girls without sexual intent, but with the above-mentioned purposes, are attested in Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and the Arab world in general, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Italy, as well as among numerous Roma minority groups.
​3. Embedding the individual practice in the broader cultural (or religious) system.	As a way of cuddling and expressing affection towards children, the practice is related to several other cultural aspects: the meaning of genitals and the sense of modesty in a culture, the importance of procreation, the boundary between clean and unclean. A group's sense of decency influences its approach to nudity and genitals. While some groups (e.g. the Anglo-Saxon world influenced by Protestant Puritanism) limit if not completely exclude opportunities for nudity and the approach of children's genitals, in other cultures the bodies of adults and the younger generation are shown naturally (e.g. in Japan, families bathe naked together until their children are teenagers). Kissing and caressing children on the genitals is linked in some groups to a sense of pride in having a son/daughter. It is, in such cases, a practice to be understood in the context of groups that have a fertility culture that places maximum emphasis on procreation. Kissing children in the genitals is to be linked in Afghanistan to the sense of total acceptance of the child's body that Afghan culture wants to express, trespassing on the boundary line of what is contaminated (Douglas 1966).
4. Is the practice essential (to the survival of the group), compulsory or optional?	The practice is optional, but often occurs as an automatism of the socialised parent in that cultural group, who puts it in place naturally, both in public and private contexts. The greeting to the genitals can be spoken of as an actual practice as it is part of the rituals of greeting the child, while in other cases the behaviour is more of a cultural habit that parents practise in domestic intimacy. ​
​5.     Is the practice shared by the group, or is it contested?	The practice is shared; no parent belonging to the groups where cultural genital kissing is widespread would read any harm in the gesture to the child. It should, however, be noted that the practice in some groups (e.g. Albanians) has disappeared from urban areas and has remained limited to social classes that perpetuate traditional lifestyles in rural areas. This is a spontaneous abandonment and not born out of a contestation of the appropriateness of the practice, which can, however, create a situation in which the urbanised part of a group is no longer familiar with the practice and the judge, therefore, risks believing that the person (generally coming from rural areas) is lying in making a cultural defence.
​6.     How would the average person belonging to that culture (or religion) behave?	The average father, mother, uncle, aunt or other relatives/friends belonging to a group were cultural genital kissing or caressing exist (e.g. Afghan, Pakistani, Albanian living in rural areas, Telogu) would kiss or caress the genitals of his boy or girl or would utter words of tenderness toward the genitals (e.g. Italian, Spanish, Roma).
​7.     Is the subject sincere?	Factual findings: verify that the person is indeed the child's parent/relative and that there is no context of abuse that could justify a different reading of the act (i.e., as a paedophilic act.) Several elements have given, in comparative Italian jurisprudence, evidence that the father practising a kiss for cultural reasons was sincere: the shock of the parents/family members who did not understand why the complaint was made; the reactions of the diaspora community in Italy that endorsed the behaviour; the fact that the child filmed by the cameras installed in the house did not show annoyance or fear at the father's gesture, but continued to suck the bottle and lay quietly beside him after the kiss (Court of Reggio Emilia, 12 November 2012); the presence of the mother while the gesture took place, which confirmed its naturalness; the wiretaps intercepted with friends of the father who were all amazed that the Italians did not understand that it was a gesture of affection (Court of Reggio Emilia, 12 November 2012).
8.     The search for the cultural equivalent: the translation of the minority practice into a corresponding (Italian) majority practice. ​	The Italian group is used to kissing children's genitals externally in private immediately after bathing: this gesture takes place in the intimacy of the home and is usually performed by the child's mother, but in a context where fathers also participate in physical care activities, it is also being extended to them. There are other behaviours performed by Italians that could have a potentially sexual reading, but which everyone is able to decode in the Italian semiotic system. Italian parents also caress their children's buttocks in public; they take nude photos of their children which they place in the family album without anyone ever considering this as paedo-pornographic material because the context makes the meaning of the photos immediately comprehensible. Until they are aproximately 5 years old, Italian children stay naked at the beach without anybody questioning that the parents are paedophiles.
9.      Does the practice cause harm? ​	No. The child is not harmed in any way by these practices; on the contrary, it could be argued that his/her physicality and the development of its relationship with its his/her own body is accentuated. It is believed that the child is able to understand that the gesture is offered as a cuddle. If necessary, assess whether to prepare a psychological report on the child.
​10.  What impact does the minority practice have on the culture, constitutional values, and rights of the (Italian) majority?	The practice of genital kissing and caressing, different from those that Italians perform, evokes a paedophilic gesture. Italians are ignorant of the meaning of the gesture and are therefore scandalised by the behaviour that they read as sexual and therefore detrimental to the child's rights to sexual integrity. Although the context might suggest that one is not in the presence of a paedophile, the practice nevertheless arouses embarrassment as it is alien to the normal rules of displaying affection towards children practised by Italians. Inadequately translated, the practice appears to violate the child's right to sexual integrity. It is important to note that without cultural understanding, the child's right to family unity and the parents' right to educate their children in a manner consistent with their cultural beliefs may be violated.
​11.   Does the practice perpetuate patriarchy?	The answer to this question is complex. In cases where the kiss is a form of 'homage to the child's penis', the practice expresses a celebration of the male child and could, therefore, be understood as patriarchal. However, it should be noted that, generally, in the cultures under examination there are celebrations of affection also towards the pubis of the girls, which is usually caressed (e.g. Albanians), so rather than patriarchy in these cases one should speak of a culture highly celebratory of fertility and reproduction. In any case, if in the case of the male child one wanted to speak of a patriarchal practice, it should be noted that the practice does not humiliate or control the child, but is intended to express the father's pride in his male child, so it is a practice that does not violate women's or children's rights.
12.  What good reasons does the minority present for continuing the practice? The criterion of an equally valid life choice.	Minorities who practise cultural genital kissing or caressing believe that, since the child does not suffer any harm, the areas of the body to be kissed can be chosen as expressive of affection towards their child. Psychology has shown that it is essential for a child's full development that it has physical contact with other bodies. Children who have not been caressed have shown severe psychological trauma. The parts of the body that it is legitimate to caress vary from culture to culture, just as the relationship with nudity also varies within the same culture (e.g. naturist hippies). Minorities have certain relevant rights to protect the practice under consideration. Article 30 of the Italian Constitution provides for the right and duty of parents to educate their children, in accordance with a pluralist view of the education/training of the child. Article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (New York 1998) provides for the child's right to enjoy his or her own culture, and thus to be socialised with its practices if they are not harmful.