I must have been doing Sex in the News on Playboy Radio for more than a month, now, ’cause our host Tiffany Granath started the show with the report that her period started — painfully — last night, and then ensued a discussion about who follows whose schedule, and that Marie’s will be a couple of days late too because Tiffany’s was. (Yet again, I give thanks for the Pill effect, in which I always know exactly when Week 0 will occur.)

And I know we’ve talked about that on a previous episode…which means it’s really happening, I really do get to be on the radio as a regular. *beam*

Kind of a slow news week in sex, or at least, in the kind of stories I like to find.

The big one is an obscenity case in Florida in which the defense wants to bring in results of Google Trends, to show that the accused is not actually violating community standard.

What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer
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.” The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics — and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm.

It is not clear that the approach will succeed. The Florida state prosecutor in the case, which is scheduled for trial July 1, said the search data may not be relevant because the volume of Internet searches is not necessarily an indication of, or proxy for, a community’s values.

But the tactic is another example of the value of data collected by Internet companies like Google, both from a commercial standpoint and as a window into the thoughts, interests and desires of their users.

“Time and time again you’ll have jurors sitting on a jury panel who will condemn material that they routinely consume in private,” said Mr. Walters, the defense lawyer. Using the Internet data, “we can show how people really think and feel and act in their own homes, which, parenthetically, is where this material was intended to be viewed,” he added.

We then tried to use Google Trends to see what Los Angeles is surfing today, but of course that’s when I remembered never to try something fresh, live on air, because I misunderstood how Google Trends works. I thought you could put in a region and see what people were searching; turns out you put in search terms and then see what regions are using them. Grumble. That’s not useful!

In other news, 21 international experts have determined a new official definition for premature ejaculation, and while the definition still makes it a vagina-specific condition, it does mention that you must be in mental distress for it to be official p.e. Also, Cory Silverberg says that the group does acknowledge other sexual acts than vaginal penetration, even though it’s not part of the definition. I was surprised to learn that 20-30% of men are affected by this (which I think means either have it or fear that they have it); so if you’re worried you’re the only one and that’s why you aren’t going to the doctor, make that appointment now. They can do something about it if it’s distressing you.

The first World Naked Bike Ride takes place this Friday in Greece, for a cause:

It’s time to put a stop to the indecent exposure of people and the planet to cars and the pollution they create.

We face automobile traffic with our naked bodies as the best way of defending our dignity and exposing the vulnerability faced by cyclists and pedestrians on our streets as well as the negative consequences we all face due to dependence on oil, and other forms of non-renewable energy.

And finally, Screaming O has released the Two-O, a disposable cock ring with two vibes, one for her and one for him. They make all kinds of small toys that probably won’t get you off on your own, but that play well with others. And of course the benefit of a one-time-use ring is that you can bring it to a new date and not have her wonder whether you cleaned it well after its previous use.

Oh, I did forget about one more, which I accidentally left on my printer at home: a Shine blog post about MissNowMrs.com, which does the tedious work of changing your name once you get married. That led to a discussion about who takes whose names anymore, and why, and who doesn’t, and why, and whether taking your husband’s last name still means that your father has passed on ownership of you to your husband. (I sent the link to the Sex in the News producer in case they want to talk about it tomorrow.)