ABSTRACT
Article 529 of the Italian Penal Code defines obscenity as ‘those acts or objects which, according to general opinion, offend public decency’, although it explicitly excludes from prosecution ‘acts or objects of artistic or scientific value on condition that they are not offered, sold, or put at the disposal of minors under the age of eighteen for reasons other than study’. This wording has allowed widely differing interpretations, which have taken into account not only the actual acts or objects, but also the context of sexually explicit material which might be deemed pornographic and the personal conditions of its consumers.
