Sacra Famiglia, 1511, Hans Baldung Grien, Sant’Anna che solletica i genitali di Gesù (con fedele che contempla il mistero dell’incarnazione) © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Cases: members of the household kissing, fondling, giving “hickeys”, praising, displaying photographs of the male child's genitals (criminal law)

Cultural test

Legal Insights

Anthropological insights

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Proposed balancing act: since the practice does not cause any harm to the child and the results of the anthropological investigation show that it is not incompatible with constitutional values, it is considered that the practice can be accepted in the Italian legal system and the parents acquitted of the charges of sexual violence. Educational pluralism, referred to in Article 30 of the Italian Constitution, legitimises the continuation of the practice.

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Bibliographic references

​Legal bibliography (recommended reading):
 
Ruggiu, I. (2019a). "Omnia munda mundis. La pratica culturale dell’‘omaggio al pene’ del bambino: uno studio per la cultural defense." Stato, Chiese e Pluralismo Confessionale, vol. no. 27. Disponibile su www.statoechiese.it.
Dauth Harika, R., & Ruggiu, I. (2020). "A legal and anthropological analysis of the cultural defence concerning fathers who kissed and touched their sons' genitals: sexual abuse or 'homage to the penis of the child'?" In L.E. Rios Vega, I. Ruggiu, & I. Spigno (Eds.), Justice and Culture: Theory and Practice Concerning the Use of Culture in the Courtrooms. Naples: Editoriale scientifica. (write to [email protected] to receive a copy)
 
Anthropological bibliography (for more details):
 
Cesăr, Cătălina. (2012). "Becoming Rom (male), becoming Romni (female) among Romanian Cortorari Roma: On body and gender." Romani Studies, 22(2), 113-140.
Gay Y Blasco P. (1997), A 'different' body? Desire and virginity among Gitanos, in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute , 3(3), pp. 517-35.
Money, J., Prakasam, K.S., & Joshi, V.N. (1991). "Transcultural Development Sexology: Genital Greeting Versus Child Molestation." IPT (Institute for Psychological Therapies), 3. Retrieved from http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume3/j3_4_4.htm
 
Interdisciplinary bibliography (for more details):
 
Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (R. Baldick, Trans.). New York. (Original work published in French in 1960 as L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime; Italian translation: Padri e figli nell'Europa medioevale e moderna, Laterza, 1976).
Steinberg, L. (1983). The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Its Modern Oblivion. Chicago.
 
This work describes the pictorial genre of the ostentatio genitalium of Christ and explains its dogmatic significance: to show the miracle of God's incarnation in a human body. The genitals of the infant Jesus are contemplated in an ecstatic manner by saints, patrons, magi, and Madonnas, and sometimes caressed and uncovered to be highlighted.