Italian courts rules phone sex is not prostitution

In the case of a man charged with prostitution for engaging in phone sex, Italian judges ruled that a lower court made a bad call.

Phone sex is not, in and of itself, prostitution, Italy's Supreme Court found on Friday.

"Verbally servicing an interlocutor for the purpose of sexual excitement does not constitute a sexual service, if it does not involve the bodily erogenous zones of the person who is getting paid for such a service," the court ruled.

The defendant had paid a woman to provide phone sex to one of his business clients. The lower court said that act constituted a crime.

Prostitution "may well be carried out via telephone or Internet Web chats" if the customer asks the vendor to perform a sex act.

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