Original sentence: Despite recent rulings by the Italian legal system, the (public) crotch-grab is still used by some Italian men as a means of deflecting the ill-luck threatened by objects or people related to death and burial and (more esoterically) the unlucky number 17 (said to be unlucky because it a) resembles a man hanging from a gibbet and b) because when written XVII in Roman numerals is an anagram of 'vixi' - 'I lived', a verb form considered unlucky because of its frequent occurrence in ancient Roman funerary inscriptions)
Edited sentence: Despite recent prudish rulings by the Italian legal system, the (public) crotch-grab is still resorted to by more traditionally-minded Italian men as a means of deflecting the ill-luck threatened by objects or people related to death and burial and (more esoterically) the unlucky number 17 (said to be unlucky because it a) resembles a man hanging from a gibbet and b) because when written XVII in Roman numerals is an anagram of 'vixi' - 'I lived', a verb form considered unlucky because of its frequent occurrence in ancient Roman funerary inscriptions)