Senate aide fired over Net sex diary

If you are going to keep an internet diary about your busy, multi-partnered sex life, you can be pretty sure someone out there is going to read it. And if those escapades include claims that a married man, appointed by President Bush to head a federal agency, pays you for the pleasure, your celebrity is assured.

Jessica Cutler, a 24-year-old aide to Ohio Senator Mike DeWine, discovered the price of fame this week when she was fired for the "unacceptable use of Senate computers" to detail her sex life on her now defunct web-log or "blog".

Ms Cutler used the moniker Washingtonienne to recount her racy love life with up to six different partners, identified only by their initials. What gave her diary such cult status was the claim that she was being paid for sex by an administration official to supplement her salary.

In one entry she wrote: "Most of my living expenses are thankfully subsidised by a few generous older gentlemen. I'm sure I am not the only one who makes money on the side this way: how can anybody live on $25,000 [£14,000] a year?"

Of course, Capitol Hill is a small place, and as Ms Cutler's popularity grew, word started to leak back to the offices of the upstanding Republican Mr DeWine, whose Midwestern values were said to be greatly affronted by Ms Cutler's behaviour. She was quickly fired.

"Our office became aware of allegations that an employee had been using Senate resources and work time to post unsuitable and offensive material to an internet web-log," his office said in a statement. Tantalisingly for Ms Cutler's avid fans, it added: "Other inappropriate material was found in the employee's work area as well."

Ms Cutler yesterday gave her first interview since being fired to another blogger, who goes by the name of Wonkette. She said: "I'm not ashamed of anything I wrote in the blog. And people are sad if they're interested in such a low-level sex scandal... I just think it's so silly. The blog is really about a bunch of nobodies... I still can't believe people care."