...for once I agree with them:
OK, I completely fail to see what raping a minor has to do with that minor being a virgin or not. Why is it important if this girl lost her virginity to a -say- 14 year old boy, before she was sexualy abused by a 40 years old?

Still, irrelevant! We're talking about 40 years old and 14 years old here!

OK, here things get a little sour and hard to swallow for me - OK, I won't pretend to be an expert on life in Italy in the sixties, but I have a really hard time believing it was all that normal and encouraged for 40 yrs old men to sleep with 14 yrs old girls back then.

I suspect what she meant was more in reference to the concept of virginity being more highly prized 50 years ago and if one had lost it, then more likely to be considered less entitled to respect and consequently fair game - rather than Italian society supporting sexual abuse 50 years ago. That's just a guess, though.

I'm really pleased (actually it's more akin to relief) to hear your persepective LG.

It's entirely irrelevant whether or not the girl was sexually active. The issue is about the abuse of a minor.

Even if she thinks she is mature (and usually at that age adolescents onlythink that they are mature), the law says differently and her rights as a minor should be protected.

His obligations as an adult should be not be mitigated.

This isn't about male/female - it applies equally to the protection of under age boys, in my opinion

Balanced Human, I'm always glad to see there are others who agree with me, of course.

However, I want to make one thing straight:

This I firmly agree with - as long as we're talking about a girl (i.e. minor) - exactly because of that issue you pointed out.

But when we start talking about adult men and women, then I think sexual activity in the past should not be considered irrelevant and simply dismissed, such as it is now, under the rule of these Rape Shield Laws.
I'm not saying that it should be the only factor, but it should definately be one of the factors taken in consideration. By this I don't mean to say that brutally raped woman shouldn't press charges (or that prosecution shouldn't prosecute a man, just because she was sexually quite active in the past - and that this would somehow make the rapist de facto not guilty, not at all.
But it should be at least considered - was this woman "raped" before (1, 2, 5, 10 times - and if so, isn't that kinda strange, is there any pattern here?)? Did she falsely accuse anyone of raping her before? etc, etc. - these are all important questions - which under the current laws CAN NOT BE EVEN ASKED; even if his lawyer has proof that this woman falsely accuoused several men in the past, he can not even mention it, because it isn't supposed to be relevant. Well, I disagree. And this shouldn't be the case especially when it comes down to the he said/she said scenario, where the usually used "women don't lie about rape, so we should believe her" line just shouldn't be an option, IMO.

I hope I'm making any sense now, I wrote this in a haste...

Yes - you did make sense :-). I see (and saw) the distinction and I agree.

Just want to add though that there is a difference between having a history of previous accusations (which should most certainly be investigated and divulged) and sexual behaviour.

You are, of course, right! My bad.