Sordid details of the grasping ambition of parents of young girls caught up in Italy's latest sex scandal emerged today as excerpts from wire-taps were splashed over the country's papers.
As part of evidence from Milan magistrates alleging Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hooked up with prostitutes and held debauched parties, parents were caught on tape encouraging their daughters to compete for the 74-year old.
"The sad army of aspiring parents-in-law" is "a symbol of a moral epidemic," said La Stampa newspaper, quoting a father who told his girl "you've had one girl then another get ahead of you... wake up!"
The Corriere della Sera, Italy's most widely-read newspaper, revealed words of advice from ambitious parents "not acting in the least to protect the virtue and good name of the girl of the house."
The brother of one of the girls investigated for attending a party in the priume minister's Arcore house near Milan is quoted as saying that Berlusconi "could solve a lot of our problems, for mum, you and me."
Allegations that the prime minister hand-picked prostitutes and other women for wild parties and paid to have sex with an underage girl, known as Ruby, sparked a series of denials Wednesday from party girls who said Berlusconi was a man of charity.
While paying for sex with prostitutes is not a crime in Italy, having sex with one under the age of 18 has been punishable with a prison sentence since Berlusconi's right-wing government voted in a law against it in 2006.
Berlusconi denies he has ever paid for sex, not least with disco-dancer Ruby, and accused the Milan magistrates Wednesday of launching their probe for politically motivated ends.
But as the girls spoke fawningly in television interviews of their love for Berlusconi, the media continued to churn out sleazy details, describing the parties as orgies with the guests dressed up as nurses or police women.
According to La Repubblica newspaper, after one such evening with the prime minister, former Miss Italy contestant Iris Berardi was recorded talking to her mother about the 7,000 euros ($9,400) she had been given.
The paper described as "dramatic and disconcerting fact" the "fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who give advice to their daughters or sister to sweeten, to draw attention to themselves and seduce the prime minister."
The Corriere della Sera added that the magistrates' 389-page document accusing Berlusconi reads like "a sociological treatise describing the Italian family caught mid-way between ambition and despair."
The Milan magistrates allege Berlusconi had sexual relations with Ruby between February and May 2010, when she was still a minor, and abused his position of power by telling police to free her after she was picked up for alleged theft.