Newsweek tech writer Steven Levy had us feeling a bit not-so-fresh with his discussion of the erotic charge of iPods in his book The Perfect Thing.

Now Levy appears to have confused the widely criticized wireless features of Microsoft’s Zune portable media player with squirting, a colloquial term for female ejaculation.

“Have you squirted a song yet?” asks Levy. “That’s the question Microsoft hopes your friends will ask you as you ponder which digital music player to acquire. After all, iPods dont squirt songs. And Microsofts new player, Zune, does.”

In case you’re worried that this sounds a bit messy, Levy notes that “the squirt is fast-drying.”

Levy brings up this strange analogy in his recent Newsweek article, Zune Should Go Beyond Squirting:

“What”s a song-squirt? Its the first, and currently the only, application of the wireless connectivity built into every Zune. Squirting is a tune-sharing feature that works like this: with built-in Wi-Fi, your Zune can alert you to every other Zune within 10 meters, to which you can then send a song or a podcast or a photo. If the potential recipient accepts the tune, in 10 or 15 seconds its in his or her Zune.”

“The catch is that the squirt is fast-drying‚Äîin three days it goes away. Or, if the recipient plays it three times within that period, it evaporates after the third spin. This is because Microsoft cut a lousy deal with the record labels, which still regard innovative digital schemes as potential piracy threats. My guess is that people will be turned off because the songs expire so quickly.”

Newsweek isn’t a stranger to provocative wordplay – they recently called the US Republican party’s fall from grace with Hispanic voters a Latino spanking. Levy’s use of “squirting”, a term most commonly used on the Internet as sex slang, though, leaves provocative wordplay behind.

While Levy’s word choice may seem to be a lewd single entendre masquerading as a double, the use of the term in this way doesn’t originate with him.

“Mr. Levy is an excellent coiner of phrases, but squirt in telecommunications usually means a very high-speed single transmission fired off in response to something,” notes wireless expert Glenn Fleishman.

“I would say that even at 15 seconds per song, it’s not a squirt,” adds Fleishman. “Maybe a squeeze.”

It’s Big. It’s Brown. It Squirts.

The squirting-Zune connection seems to have come from Microsoft itself. While Microsoft doesn’t “squirt” in its official Zune marketing materials, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, right, appears to be trying to give the term some legitimacy.

“The value of Zune, if we’re successful, is all in the software. It’s in community,” said Ballmer in a BusinessWeek interview. “I want to squirt you a picture of my kids. You want to squirt me back a video of your vacation.”

If Microsoft is using Internet sex slang to brand the Zune as “edgy”, it may not be working.

“Squirt…” according to one commenter, “just shows how hard Microsoft tries to be hip and actually makes itself look so much more un-cool. Like a geek trying to impress that popular girl and ends up looking dorkier. Microsoft is a DORK; Steve Ballmer is the biggest DORK of them all.”