Since February 2008, men in Italy have been besieged with bad luck, thanks to a court judgment that convicted a 42-year-old worker from Milan of public indecency. The accused was “ostentatiously touching his genitals through his clothing”. The court considered this “potentially offensive to collectively-held feelings of decorum”. The defence lawyer argued that it was an involuntary action (“probably to adjust his overalls”), but to no avail. The offender was fined 200 euros by the highest appeals court of the country.

It may be true that any form of “genital-patting” (as John Hooper terms it in the Guardian) causes “awkwardness, disgust and disapproval in the average man”. But Italians would beg to differ. Just as people cross their fingers or touch wood to keep disease, death or disaster away, in Italy it is customary for the men to grab their private parts (affectionately called “attributi”) in order to ward off evil.

The Italian ruling clubs together all forms of “crotch-scratching”— prompted by discomfort or by superstition — as offensive. Certain actions are considered inappropriate for public viewing. They not only offend the “average man” — a useful alibi for legislators — but also taint the sanctity of the public sphere. The issues raised by the Italian ruling go beyond the obvious question of violating an individual’s right to touch himself. Suddenly, this behaviour becomes as suspect as a range of other ‘uncivil’ activities — spitting, peeing or bathing on the streets — which would be severely condemned in any Western society.

But there remains a crucial difference between an activity like crotch-scratching and other bodily actions that the public disapproves of. This disapproval is directed at certain noxious activities that pollute public life. So, spitting becomes an offence because it is unhygienic, but not flatulence or belching. Recently, a middle-aged woman, suffering from flatulence, had lit a match in a trans-atlantic flight to spare her co-passengers the smell. The alarm she raised would have been much less had she chosen to keep still.

There is nothing inherently dangerous about crotch-scratching. Unlike spitting or peeing publicly, it does not ‘pollute’ in any physical sense. It is rather like a moment of unconscious intimacy with oneself, like biting fingernails or tugging at one’s hair. The West remains unmoved by unabashed public display of sexual affection, but is perturbed by a superstitious habit.

The Italian legislation is the outcome of a history of sensibilities that is unmistakably Western. These sensibilities have been formed as much by increased awareness of civic norms as by a heightened self-consciousness (as in the flatulent woman on the plane). It is unlikely that India will ever have a law that forbids men to touch their privates in public (in which case, every second man would have to be fined by the minute.)

In the Indian public gaze, Western ideas of social hygiene turn perversely askew. The most ubiquitous words on Indian streets are “Commit No Nuisance”. For many of us, the phrase conjures up a crumbling wall bearing tell-tale yellow stains. The words haunt our subconscious like the 11th commandment, but we seldom ponder what ‘committing nuisance’ might exactly imply.

The Indian Penal Code defines public nuisance as any act that “causes... common injury, danger or annoyance to the public”. Between physical injury and perceived insult, bodily threat and mental annoyance, the definition absorbs and authenticates a bizarre range of activities: spitting, peeing, nose-blowing. Annoying mobile phones are all right, but a peck on the cheek at an AIDS awareness campaign is wrong; just as the public display of affection between a man and a woman is vulgar, but between men it goes unremarked.