Italy: Just the Bare Facts, Signora

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Among the 10,907 contenders for 945 legislative seats in next Sunday's national elections, no other candidate receives the coverage accorded Ilona Staller, 37. Under the banner of Italy's small Radical Party, Staller provocatively proclaims that "more pornography equals knowledge and nonviolence." But the flashbulbs really start popping at her rallies when Staller, a porno star better known as "Cicciolina," rolls down the top of her tight hot-pink dress and buttresses her rhetoric with a fulsome display of physical eloquence. While campaigning, the half-clad Cicciolina embraces many of her admirers. Her slogan: "Let's have pleasure. Let's spread happiness." Her pitch against nuclear energy: "I warm myself with the sun and with love."

Staller says she receives 150 letters a day, most proposing marriage. "I would never vote for her," says Francesca Melandri, a screenwriter and feminist. "Yet I understand the Radical's message. Even a porno star is more virginal than most politicians."