Italians touch themselves on camera to protest radical assault ruling
Luke Gentile
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Italians across social media are groping themselves to protest a judge’s recent ruling that nonconsensual touching does not constitute a crime unless it lasts at least 10 seconds.
The ruling saw the acquittal of a 66-year-old man who admitted he had inappropriately touched a 17-year-old school girl as a joke, according to a report.
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Throughout Italy, citizens have plastered social media platforms with videos of themselves touching their chests with a timer counting down from 10 seconds.
Several videos show the self-groping lasting 9 seconds in an apparent jab at the ruling.
Hashtags attached to the posts include “#10secondi,” or 10 seconds, and “palpata breve,” or quick feel.
The incident at the center of the trend occurred in April 2022 when Antonio Avola, the caretaker at a high school in Rome, groped a female student in a stairwell.
He purportedly pulled the girl’s pants down and grabbed at her behind and underwear.
“Love, you know I was joking,” Avola said, the girl said in an interview, the report noted.
Despite prosecutors’ pursuit of a sexual assault conviction and prison time, charges against Avola were dismissed because groping is not a crime if it does not last at least 10 seconds.
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“The caretaker came up from behind without saying anything. He put his hands down my trousers and inside my underwear,” according to the girl at the center of the case. “He groped my bottom. Then, he pulled me up — hurting my private parts. For me, this is not a joke. This is not how an old man should ‘joke’ with a teenager.”
“That handful of seconds was more than enough for the caretaker to make me feel his hands on me.”