Best. Steinbuch v. Cutler. Sentence. Ever.

I will elaborate about this article and case and privacy more later, but for now, I present the best sentence ever written about Steinbuch v. Cutler from Dahlia Lithwick in her Slate piece, "Private I's?"

In the short term, Steinbuch's suit has only added buttercream frosting to the cake of humiliation Cutler baked him.

This is actually a topic I deal with all the time, not in relation to blogging so much as my writing my column. In fact, I am going to email some people I met last night and basically ask their permission to write about them, but I believe wholeheartedly that free speech means we have the write to tell our life stories, to talk about what has happened to us. Greta Christina commented on this on Susie Bright's blog recently, about balancing her interests with her lovers. And I think these are certainly important things to consider, but by us, not necessarily by the law. I, and Jessica Cutler, and any blogger or writer, should have the right to write about their life, including their sexuality.

What Lithwick and this case is basically asking is, "Is sex always on the record?" Well, I guess that would depend whether you think life is always on the record. The fact is, blogging has changed those stakes. "The media" is not just an elite group, but anyone, anywhere, on blogger, typepad, Livejournal, Myspace - look at any of those and see countless, often anonymous, posts and blogs about sex. If Cutler is found guilty, then every single sex blogger or anyone who's ever written about their dating or sex life needs to seriously be worried. I just don't understand how that's different from, say, Stephanie Klein's book, or Catherine Millet's, or Tucker Max's. In fact, Max won his lawsuit against Katy Johnson, (note the ACLU amicus curiae brief mentioned in the Wikipedia entry) about his right to relate his side of their encounter. I don't think there's any new facts in the Slate article, and the links are all things I've seen before, but that buttercream sentence is just way too priceless.