WASHINGTON — A judge on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Jessica Cutler, the former Senate aide who posted details of her sex life on the Internet.

The case brought by Sen. Mike DeWine’s former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Robert Steinbuch, alleges that Cutler engaged in an invasion of his privacy in 2004 by publishing sexually explicit facts about a relationship with Steinbuch.

Cutler was fired from DeWine’s staff after the Web log – which identified her purported sex partners by initials – created a public sensation.

At a court hearing, lawyers for Cutler and Steinbuch argued whether Steinbuch had waited too long to file the suit.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled that Steinbuch had one year from the time of the Internet postings to bring the matter to court.

Almost all of the material at issue in the case went up on the Internet more than a year before the lawsuit filed on May 18, 2005.

The 21-page complaint provides verbatim entries from Cutler’s Internet site, starting innocuously: “Item! A new contender for my fair hand. He works in one of the committee offices. We will call him RS.”

The next day, the language about “RS” turns sexually explicit.

The suit says that Cutler’s Web site described “in graphic detail the intimate amorous and sexual relationship.

“Cutler’s outrageous actions, setting before anyone in the world with access to the Internet intimate and private facts regarding plaintiff, constituted a gross invasion of his privacy, subjecting him to humiliation and anguish,” the suit states.

Steinbuch’s suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

After the hearing, Cutler’s lawyer, John Umana, said the judge had “eviscerated” the suit by setting the one-year deadline, which Umana said would put most of the Internet material outside the scope of the case.

A call to the office of Steinbuch’s lawyer was not immediately returned Wednesday.