In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.”

Well yeah, the people into "apple pies" and "watermelons" are the real sickos. An orgy is harmless family fun compared to that shit.

The whole thing really makes you think, though, because the ACLU is all "yes we shouldn't throw pornographers in jail" but also "oh wait you're giving up search data to subpoenas should we be concerned?" Thankfully the tactic won't work anyway. In a federal obscenity case earlier this month, the defense proved conclusively that porn is more popular than college football but the pornographer was convicted on all counts.

"The fact is, Alex is not into porn — he is into funny — and sometimes funny has a sexual character," the judge's wife said. She faulted the newspaper for using "graphic descriptions that make the material sound like hard-core porn when, in fact, it is more accurately described as raunchy humor."

This is true. The obscene images may be found here, uncensored (NSFW if you work at the L.A. Times). It's a collection of ancient internet macros—so old they rely on the "Priceless" joke—that might be considered titillating to a sheltered 13-year-old.

But this is actually a more important point, and one that seems to maybe demonstrate malice on the part of the Times in their coverage:

Ms. Tiffany noted that her husband did not have a Web site with a graphical interface, but rather a file server that was not secured. "What excuse is there for timing the story with surgical precision so as to do maximum damage to the judicial process?" she asked.

The Times spokesperson called their story "fair and accurate," because she wouldn't have been able to stifle her laughter if she'd said "balanced" outright.

So—now Kozinski, a dude whose appreciation for borderline R-rated juvenile humor might've made him a decent barometer for what the "community" might reasonably find acceptable, will not be presiding over that obscenity case against the extreme porn dude. The case is basically the front in the current Justice Department's War on Pornography, so we hope none of you like jerking off.

But when the arbiters of what's too naughty for even the Constitution to cover are themselves secretly hording an outré fetish porn stash, how can "obscenity" apply to the rest of us? In order to make an obscenity ruling, after all, judges have to be able to review the material in question. Meanwhile, Isaacs's trial is currently suspended while the judge's photo collection is being evaluated at his own request — presumably by other judges. All in a day's work, eh, Your Honors?

Snelling edited the paper along with one man who owned a saloon and another "who had been arrested for bawdy-house rowdiness in 1836," the best possible thing in history to have been arrested for, probably. The paper was about trashy gossip and tips on brothels, chambermiads, and courtesans. They were all charged with libel, obviously, after they revealed that a Wall Street merchant "had worked as a 'fancy man' for a prostitute and asserting that he was, among other things, lascivious, sordid and crapulous." (The more things change, right?)

After the charges were dropped against one of the editors, he started a rival scandalsheet devoted to attacking Snelling. After Snelling got out of jail, they started a new paper together called The Whip.

By that summer, there were two more flash rags, The Rake and The Libertine, and a printer and cartoonist named Robinson was busy selling dirty drawings with titles like "Do You Like This Sort of Thing?"

Basically, bloggers need to step up their game.

We therefore must say of Alex Balk, our onetime colleague that his best effusions now are the mumblings of a sot. What has he left but to crawl his way through the world, leaving his slime behind him.

Sex and the City (1840) [NYT]

[Animal NY]

# Recordings of women experiencing orgasms
# Videos of nude men participating in "ejaculation educational demonstrations"
# Detailed photographs of men and women masturbating
# Images of mammary intercourse
# Close-up images of topless women and male and female sexual anatomy
# Large-scale photos of men performing oral sex on one another (and performing oral sex on themselves)
# An illustrated list of sex positions
# Threesomes
# Photos of nude strippers
# An image called "Virgin Killer" depicting a naked prepubescent girl from the 1976 cover of a Scorpions album (banned in the U.S.)

Our first thought upon reading this was that we are not spending enough time on Wikipedia. Our second was that we'd like to see some examples of this salacious content, because we had trouble finding any: those "nude" strippers are actually mostly* covered up, the sexual positions and anatomy photos are no worse than what you would find in a (really cool) biology textbook or on the Discovery Channel, and the gay fluffer pictures are tastefully non-explicit (at least by our standards*). What a ripoff!

Not only is this an unusually misguided display of anti-porn hysteria—anyone looking for free unblocked smut can do a lot better than Wikipedia—but their complaints show a shocking misunderstanding of how Wikipedia actually works. It's completely created, edited and policed by its users —i.e. anyone and everyone—and if there's a problem the users are the ones who fix it.

Take that infamous 1976 Scorpions album cover, which could be considered child pornography: it might have been banned, but one could also argue that it has some sort of historical relevance. If the community doesn't agree, then the community of Wikipedia users can remove it ... which they did are still debating**. (Here's the ongoing discussion about it, which predates the WND article by almost three years.)

Tattling to the FBI about nudie pics on the internet is like complaining to Congress about evolution. Hating it enough won't make it go away. Besides, one way or another people have to learn about strippers—so it's either on Wikipedia or in a strip club. Take your pick.

· "Is Wikipedia wicked porn?" + "Naked young girl photo troubles 'Wikipedophilia'" (wnd.com)
· Fluffing (Wikipedia)
· Wikipedia T-Shirt (bustedtees.com)

* Updated to reflect some specific photos which a reader bought to our attention after we posted this entry; however, we still don't think they're anywhere near as bad as the WND article makes them out to be.

** Update (5/9): Another reader has informed us that the banned Scorpions album cover has been restored to the Wikipedia post in question since we first posted about the issue, and the debate about it among Wikipedia users continues.

Kreepie Kats is an occasional cartoon by Jim Behrle

The Emasculating Insults

• "Pussy." According to Time analyst Mark Halperin, former presidential candidate John Edwards thinks Barack Obama is a pussy. According to Urban Dictionary, "pussy" is "the box a dick comes in." And it's odd that Halperin attributes such an emasculating sort of comment to John Edwards, as John is a frequent target of similar language. Especially from noted reasonable pundit Ann Coulter, who has repeatedly called Edwards a
• "Fag." Fag is the mean word for a "gay." In addition to John Edwards, other people recently publicly tarred with this particular term include people Heath Ledger winked at and some poor schmuck named Jesse who Jerry Lewis doesn't care for. (NB: We think he was going to say "fagalah.") Isiah Washington also referred to a Grey's Anatomy co-star as a faggot.
• "Sissy." Easily the least offensive of the listed emasculating vulgarisms, this one was recently used by a former New York Press editor trying to sell a book about how America is a nation of Sissies, and by Salon editors who wished to insult war hero and torture victim John McCain.

The Anti-Women Insults

• "Cunt." This category belongs to cunt! While most of the terms used above are also inherently anti-lady, "cunt" is the most gynophobic and also the one used most often at women. Recent offenders: Roger Stone and Jane Fonda (who wasn't really insulting anyone, just cursing on live TV because she's been basically out of it for 25 years).

All-purpose Obscenity

• "Fuck" Diane Keaton!
• "Shit" Chris Matthews!
• Nudity. Not a word, but a state of being! An offensive state of being here in America, dammit! Just ask the producers of NYPD Blue!

Who is to blame? Nasty, uncouth bloggers, obvi. Jane Fonda never even heard that word until she discovered Jezebel. Yes, nasty bloggers like Tribune Co head Sam Zell, who's been caught recently telling employees fuck you and calling executives motherfuckers.

So if not bloggers specifically, maybe just the media in general? The media that keeps getting up in arms and demanding apologies every time someone accidentally speaks as they do when they're not on camera? Or maybe American behavior is at its most divorced from its ostensibly shared moral sense than it has been since, fuck, the 1950s.