An unwanted kiss constitutes sexual violence, Italy's highest court said Monday in the latest in a string of controversial sex rulings.
Monday's outcome flew in the face of a verdict on a similar case the same court made less than a year ago.
In this latest case, the Cassation Court upheld a 14-month sentence against an Albanian immigrant who grabbed his ex-girlfriend and kissed her in a bid to reclaim her affections.
The court, Italy's highest court of appeal whose rulings set precedents, said "sexual acts do not only involve the genital sphere but all those which regard the erogenous zones".
It said "merely brushing one's lips" across someone else's face, provided it was undesired, could also be punished.
The last time the court took a look at undesired sexual attentions came in May.
On that occasion it appeared to take a lenient view of estranged husbands who try to cajole unwilling spouses into having sex.
The court turned down an appeal from prosecutors bidding to pin a sexual assault charge on a man who grabbed his estranged wife, cuddled her and insisted on renewing their physical relationship.
In turning down the sex charge, the court noted that the men had "embraced her passionately and uttered words of affection, desire and frustration, with the possible intention of restoring conjugal unity".
It said the woman had herself "admitted he only cuddled her, without feeling her up".
His actions should therefore be seen as "a simple gesture of affection, even though he was trying to have sex".
The veteran legal eagles have had their problems with sex over the years.
Earlier last year they said that sexual assault on an under-age girl is less serious if she has already had sex with others.
Upholding an appeal from a man convicted of forcing his 14-year-old stepdaughter to perform oral sex, the court said the girl's past sexual experience amounted to "extenuating circumstances".
The effect of rape on a sexually active minor is less devastating if she has lost her virginity, the court argued, because her personality "is much more developed than one would normally expect in a girl of her age".
In 1999 the justices decided that a woman who removes tight jeans, even under threat, is complicit in rape.
In 2002 they ruled that patting a woman's bottom was OK if it was "sudden and spontaneous".
The rulings sparked outcries in Italy and abroad, and the judges rethought their position in later cases.
Other baffling sentences have included upholding an adultery rap against a woman who kissed a bus driver, and declaring that adultery could take place before marriage.
