Why Italy
Italian-American men.. do you touch your crotch to ward off bad luck?
First of all, I honestly don't mean this in any offensive way. This is a serious question. I was just reading this article (you can find it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/29/wcrotch129.xml ) about how some superstitious Italian men grab their crotches to ward off evil. I had never heard of this before and I'm wondering if this is a superstition that still remains in some Italian-Americans today.
Public Comments
- Today it is more an expression then it is actually used in public. People may say "touch wood" like "touch your balls" but they will not really do it. You cannot generalize this in any case. Most educated Italians have some very fine manners and would not even use a "dirty" word. Having said this, there is such a wide multitude of Italians with so many different opinions and ways to behave, that it is not simple to find a "standard". This is reflected also well in politics, where you find so many different parties and differences within the parties, that on the surface all seems the same. Many Italians are very tolerant and the society as a whole is such a colored pictured, that you really can find everything you look for.
