In the case of a man charged with prostitution for engaging in phone sex, Italian judges ruled that a lower court made a bad call.

Phone sex is not, in and of itself, prostitution, Italy’s Supreme Court found on Friday, according to ANSA.

“Verbally servicing an interlocutor for the purpose of sexual excitement does not constitute a sexual service, if it does not involve the bodily erogenous zones of the person who is getting paid for such a service,” the court ruled.

The defendant had paid a woman to provide phone sex to one of his business clients. The lower court said that act constituted a crime.

According to UPI, the Supreme Court also left the door open for other types of similar acts to still be considered illegal.

Prostitution “may well be carried out via telephone or Internet Web chats” if the customer asks the vendor to perform a sex act.

And phone sex isn’t always perfectly legal. A Dover, Fla. man found that out the hard way when he was accused of trying to initiate sex with a 911 operator, the AP reported.

– Huff Post