Lying over adultery is legal in Italy

Italy's highest appeal court has ruled that married Italian women who commit adultery are entitled to lie about it to protect their honour.

The court gave its landmark ruling after hearing the case of a 48-year-old woman, convicted of giving false testimony to police by denying she had lent her mobile phone to her lover.
The appeal court did not agree that she had broken the law.

It said bending the truth was justified to conceal extra-marital relationships. In a predominantly Catholic country you might expect the courts to take a dim view of lying and adultery.
But not in this case.

The woman who brought the appeal was from Porto Ercole on the Tuscany coast, and named only as Carla. She had lent her telephone to her secret lover, Giovanni, who then used it to call Carla's estranged husband, Vincenzo, and insult him.

Giovanni, the lover, was convicted of abusive behaviour in a local court, and Carla convicted as an accessory.

Controversial judgements

But the Court of Cassation found that having a lover was a circumstance that damaged the honour of the person among family and friends. Lying about it, therefore, was permitted, even in a judicial investigation.

It is not yet clear whether the ruling might also apply to men who have secret mistresses.
The Court of Cassation, which is largely staffed by elderly male appeal judges, has in the past issued a number of controversial judgements.

It once gave a ruling, later rescinded after protests from women's groups, that a woman could not be raped by definition if she was wearing tight jeans, since the jeans could only be removed with her consent.

God's still playing the 'Forbidden Fruit' game

Christian Porn addicts confess:

10/14/3 “I'm a 19 year old male who has been trapped in the clutches of pornography for a little over 2 years now. Little did I know on that day when I literally begged my parents to get the Internet that I would be taking my first steps towards sin and debauchery. I only pray that God has mercy on my soul and gives me the strength to break free.”

5/23/3 “I’m 63 and have been addicted to pornography since I was 13. In 1995 through counseling and prayer I was able to finally get rid of all the magazines, books and videos. …I lived a porn free life from July 1995 until October of last year. Then I got a computer and totally slipped off the wagon. It is all just a mouse click away. I did not purchase this computer with porn in mind. There are so many wonderful things out there in cyber land. So getting rid of the computer is a last resort. The porn just filled a void in my life. But instead of contributing anything positive it has just made things worse. Now not only am I suffering from burnout I’m also filled with guilt, disappointment, self-doubt and a lot of other personal negative feelings. …I just want to get my life back. I’m tired of looking at and trading porn with other lost souls for up to 10 hours a day.”

5/18/6 "I am writing to tell people how bad porn is. Porn destroys your relationship with God. There are so many times I have looked at porn and I would come to God to ask for forgiveness and then turn around again and look at porn again. One night, I got so into porn that my mind did not care if I went to Hell or anything else."

1/2/3 “I'm 17, and I have been masturbating for four years. It started when my friend told me of a free password site for porn. I tried stopping, but the temptation was too great. I kept telling myself I'll stop tomorrow. I tried gradually going down, and I said to myself, well maybe reading explicit stories isn't bad. But the fantasies were still in my head. I had to read more and more extreme stories, until I started visiting explicit websites again. I thought I was hopeless. What's worse follows. I then started looking at gay porn. I know deep inside, God has made me compatible for a woman, and I want a family later on. But the temptation kept growing and growing. I don't watch porn anymore, but I can't stop masturbating. Most of the time, I try to justify it, saying there's nothing wrong with it.”

6/7/6 I got out of my bed and destroyed my porn collection. I strongly warn everybody not to indulge in hardcore pornography. Do not believe you can get away with nothing because you are just an ordinary consumer. I thought the same. I know that one time you will have to face consequences. The devil will pay you back in the same manner as you have done, watched, and fantasized. That's the righteousness of God; you will have nobody to blame for except yourself.”

The oldest swingers: sex games of Stone Age exposed

Story found by Snakechic

Snakey: Here's a bit of research...... Does it surprise anyone that sex is for fun as well as for making babies. ? Nah..SO why do christian conservatives / moderates / liberals no doubt, like to enforce strict controls on every one's sex lives? Whats with the beliefs about women ?- of course we're not preprogrammed to be mongomous! No such thing

Mothy: Thanks for bring up my second favourite topic... I can always count on you to contribute blogworthy stuff - heh. I think if I became a Christian again it'd have to be with the 'Libchrists'... Swinging christians? The two words just sound sooo funny together.

Wiki: Liberated Christians is the name used by a group that contends that monogamy is a tradition with no biblical basis. According to the Liberated Christians website, the group espouses responsible nonmonogamy and polyamory, and works to expose what they call "false traditions of sexual oppression".

Roger Dobson - The oldest swingers: sex games of Stone Age exposed

He may have come down from the trees, but prehistoric man did not stop swinging. New research into Stone Age humans has argued that, far from having intercourse simply to reproduce, they had sex for fun.

Practices ranging from bondage to group sex, transvestism and the use of sex toys were widespread in primitive societies as a way of building up cultural ties.

According to the study, a 30,000-year-old statue of a naked woman - the Venus of Willendorf - and an equally ancient stone phallus found in a German cave, provide the earliest direct evidence that sex was about far more than babies.

Timothy Taylor, reader in archeology at Bradford University, reviewed evidence from dozens of archeological finds and scientific studies for his research.

“The widespread lay belief that sex in the past was predominantly heterosexual and reproductive can be challenged,” said Taylor.

He argues that monogamy only became established as hunter-gatherer societies took up agriculture and settled in houses, allowing the social roles of men and women to become more fixed.

Experts believe research such as Taylor’s may help overturn false assumptions that sex for the purposes of reproduction is the form closest to nature.

Petra Boynton, a relationship counsellor and health lecturer at University College, London, found the study “refreshing”.

“So much evolutionary theory promotes the idea that humans, particularly women, are preprogrammed for monogamy, but that is often simply overlaying science on a preexisting view of society,” she said.

Taylor, whose research is published by Haworth Press in the Handbook of the Evolution of Human Sexuality, says the human attitude to sex arose from the complex interaction of physical and mental development. By comparison with modern humans, who appeared about 300,000-100,000 years ago, apes have tiny male genitals, no female breasts and are hairy. But they are easily able to distinguish the sexes because males can weigh up to three times as much as females.

Humans, by contrast, are far less easy to distinguish by size. Taylor says that prominent male genitals and female breasts developed to aid recognition of the opposite sex in creatures of similar size and shape. The similarity in size, combined with the ease of face-to-face sex, allowed intercourse to become a vital part of social interaction, communication and inventiveness.

Adultery... for adults only

The notion that a divorced woman should have to wait until her ol' man inserts his penis into another woman's vagina before she is free to pursue another suitor is completely ridiculous. Now Jesus said, "If a man even looks at a woman to lust after her, he has committed adultery". The johnson has been taken out of the equation here. According the the Bible, it's not about the cock-a-doodle-do.

Wise guy Jesus was smart enough and spiritual enough to know that it isn't the slapping together of body parts that annuls a relationship. It's all about the heart attitude, baby. What if you use a thick enough condom and don't actually 'touch' the partner? Is that considered sex or just a rather deep rubber gloved handshake?

Sheeesh, rubbing uglies allows a righteous marriage annulment and then allowable remarriage? pfft. Of course, even if you can't find the loopholes for remarrying before an ex does the hippidy dippity with someone else, you can always ask for forgiveness for your 'mistake' and move on.

Oh and I love the ten virgins story - The five wise and five unwise virgins who had lamp issues - the dude ends up with FIVE wives! A New Testament justification of polygamy!

Ezekiel 23:20 (NIV) - There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.


I saw a documentary on National Geographic channel about a sexually promiscuous tribe who really don't seem to have a problem with sex outside of marriage. They marry but they also share the love around and don't 'seem' to have a problem with it. What I am asking is, is that immoral? No one gets hurt and it's just a fact of life for them. I guess I am again asking, is it the rule itself that has labelled it as immoral? If the rule was never there then would it be wrong? If we were raised in a culture where adultery was acceptable for both men and women, would it still be immoral?