The world thought that the famously and chronically corrupt Italian government couldn’t get any more controversial, what with it being overrun by thieves, convicted criminals and mafia-sympathizers. But Anna Ilona Staller, a porn star who moved from Hungary to Italy, showed the world how to use sexuality as a political tool. Cicciolina, as she is widely known, was elected to represent the district of Rome in 1987. Twenty-thousand people hand-wrote her name on their ballots, preferring her over forty-seven other Radical Party nominees. In that election, she received the second highest number of votes among Radical Party candidates--only party leader Marco Pannella received more. Cicciolina's political campaign included striptease, live snakes as props, and her signature flashing of breasts.

Blond hair, red lips and emphasized eyebrows were Cicciolina's trademark. Even as a Member of Italian Parliament, she refused to trade her signature look for a more conservative appearance.

Her political career is characterized by advocating a safe future without nuclear energy and with absolute sexual freedom, including the right to sex in prisons. She is against all forms of violence, the death penalty, and the use of animals for fur or scientific experimentation. She is for the decriminalisation of drugs, against censorship of any kind, in favor of sex education in schools, and for objective information about AIDS. She has proposed a tax on automobiles to reduce the damages of smog and fund the defence of nature.

Many saw Cicciolina's exhibitionism, promiscuous persona and victory at the polls as a national embarrassment. Although she is unofficially credited with establishing one of Europe's first green parties, she had little political experience when she got elected to the Italian parliament. And lest anyone forget that sexuality was her claim to power, she acted in an adult movie while serving her term.

But many others recognized that she was using sexuality not only to get elected, but also to poke fun at the hypocrisy she saw in the Italian government.

As member of parliament, Cicciolina critiqued the oligarchy of Italian patriarchs who lorded over Italian politics. She irreverently called male members of parliament cicciolini, an Italian term of endearment that does not have a single-word English equivalent but can be loosely translated as "cute little tubby boys." The Prime Minister was a cicciolino. The all-powerful head of the Italian Socialist Party was just another cicciolino. By calling them cicciolini instead of prefixing their name with "Your Honor," Cicciolina insisted that they were just "cute little tubby boys," some woman's naughty little children. And indeed, three years into Cicciolina's term, a bribery scandal brought down two major Italian political parties.

Historically, Italian women have held only 10 percent of total parliament seats and were not allowed full political participation until after World War II. As one of the few women in parliament, Cicciolina's victory was significant. Furthermore, she was unafraid to chastise the male parliament members, calling attention to a political system that forbade new faces: "The rules of government change," she said, "but your faces always remain the same ... and the bigger issue is that our problems are always the same, but you just pretend nothing is wrong and continue asking for votes and continue to make your governments fall only to revive them again. The years go by, but your faces remain."

On two occasions, Cicciolina is reported to have attempted to end the buildup to the Gulf War by offering her own body. "I am available to make love to Saddam Hussein to achieve peace in the Middle East," she said.

For all her attempts at challenging the status quo, Cicciolina was not re-elected after her five-year term. But she did stir things up: she was an outsider and a woman--an over-sexed woman by some standards--who forced her way into the boys' club upsetting their sense of comfort and entitlement over politics. Cicciolina unapologetically used her sexuality: she was both positioned because of it and used it to position herself politically. Perhaps her legacy can best be summed up by her own self-assessment: "I am a combative woman." Her sexuality, along with her outspokenness, was a powerful tool in her political arsenal.

By:

Rachael Seso

Perez, Vrieloukarl

Perdiguerra, May Ann

Bautista, Eddelaine