GUSTO: BitchSlap by Elizabeth F. Stewart: The gloves are off.

Last night, here aboard their own spanking new private yacht, the SSdailygusto.com, these swells pitched a swank launch soiree in their palatial ballroom. I danced my stilettos down to mere nubbins. Hitting the deck this morning would be less painful borne aloft by a litter of hunky slave boys. None in sight, my coltish sea legs stumble me stylishly onto a rackish deckchair. Thankfully, I am soon attended by a cunning little cabin boi, Tidbit. A gamine in snappy nautical gear, the boi promiscuously tucks me in with a dreamy cashmere laprobe monogrammed "SSdg.c." Ah, laprobe, laptop, lap of luxury. My new editors have spared no expense to seduce only the finest contributors onboard for their readers! The lurking Tidbit mercifully medicates me with black coffee. Is the boi winking at me?

In the obscene noonday glare, an ebullient crowd seems to be making quite the hoopla with confetti and streamers at the bow. The official christening of the SSdailygusto.com is underway. The designated slugger clangs away at the prow with a freakish ceremonial champagne bottle and it finally erupts in fizz and shards. Those less exhausted and/or jaded than I, cheer. We're off!

So elated to be off my throbbing feet, aboard and under sail, I watch the shimmering gunmetal water drift by as the sun warms my feather-light woolen cocoon, the breeze cooling my skin and ruffling my hair, and underneath my black incognito shades my eyelids are losing the fight to take in the towering Manhattan scenery. My head jerks up, making an effort to rally. I'm trying to earn my keep onboard -- to reflect on my first BitchSlap topic. It should be something apropos for dailygusto.com's maiden voyage sex column. What to write first? So hard to decide, and with what I have in store for readers -- a fount of scandalous personal exploits, irresponsible smut, scathing libertine screeds, the magnitude of the task seems insurmountable, and my head lolls to chest again. Orpheus is kicking my ass. I try vainly to resist, but succumb . . . Get a grip. On a trip. Bon voyage. Voyage to the bottom of the sea. See the mermaids. Maiden voyage. Maidenhood. Maidenhead. Virgin queen. Virgin soil. Virgins soiled. Soil a virgin. . . .

I feel cool shade steal over my face. My eyes shoot open. Tidbit is bending over my chair, smiling wickedly in my face. Oh, I've fallen asleep. For how long? Am I drooling? Does my hair look nice? Oh. I was dreaming. "God -- did I say anything out loud?" Apparently I said that out loud. "Soil a virgin?" Tidbit giggles improbably, pouring me an obviously much-needed second cup of coffee. This time the boi endearingly leers. "Yes, well," I coo suavely, after a classic slapstick spit-take, "perhaps later."

Invigorated by the frisson of a servant's libidinous impertinence, my thoughts come into focus. The perfect topic for a first sex column: Virginity: Lost and Found.

VIRGINITY: What the heck is it? An intact hymen. For those who missed this in biology class or Sunday mass, the hymen is a membrane inside the vagina which either tears or stretches; either hurts or doesn't; and, either bleeds or doesn't, when a vagina is penetrated (theoretically, for the first time). Medically and Biblically, this is supposed to be proof positive of female virginity.

In some societies an unmarried female can be punished by death if her hymen is not intact. In some contemporary Iraqi tribal communities, male family members will perform "honor killings" on rape victims. Aside from slaughtering male rape victims in similar cultures -- is there a society where loss of male virginity is a capital crime?

How do you lose it? Probably most people would say that losing your virginity is "having sex for the first time." The stereotype is Barbie in Dream Wedding Gown, under Ken, in the Dreamhouse, on a nuptial canopy bed. Of course this doesn't recognize that partners might be the same sex. Mattel makes no lesbian wedding drag tuxedoes big enough for Barbie's boobs. The idealized image certainly does not recognize that the first sexual experience for many young people is molestation or rape at the hands of a relative or family friend -- which happens in too many Dreamhouses.

I prefer a more inclusive definition. Madonna's "Like a Virgin" expresses it delicately: "touched for the very first time." Delicacy is rarely her chosen mode, nor is it mine. But how can people still debate: "What is sex?" Read my red, wet, pouty lips: Blowjobs and eating pussy are sex. Buttfucking and rimming are sex. Hence the terms: "oral" and "anal" "sex." Remember Monica "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Lewinsky? If losing virginity is about "having sex" for the first time, then this Bitch's logic dictates that performing any of those sexual acts, including diddling with a cigar, would constitute losing one's virginity.

Parents: Please tell kids about this more-inclusive definition of sex. While not a parent, (I am happily the eccentric auntie type), I read in the newspapers that kids do blowjobs and buttfuck "instead of sex," thinking those activities are a preferable premarital expression of sexual feelings. Find out if they are subject to "abstinence-only until marriage" sex education classes. If so, they may not know crucial health info. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. June 2003 Legislative Report, "The federal government provides $50 million in grants each year to states for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. States are required to match every four dollars of federal money with three dollars of state money." This is an Abstinence-Only-Sexual-Education Industrial-Complex. And they say homos have an agenda!

How can you get it back? There are phoenix-like creatures called "born-again virgins," spawned by compassionate conservatives -- probably the geniuses who discovered the cure for homosexuality. They create new pristine biographies to blot out past sins. God loves them for who are and who they plan to be: people who will not have sexual intercourse until they legally marry a person of the opposite sex, in a Christian union. They believe in a gentle, forgiving God -- apparently not the same harsh, judgmental God who sentences Adam and Steve to eternal damnation in the fiery depths of Hell. As a Heathen, I am so confused.

So, before they tie the knot to the old ball and chain, they can lap up legit analingus but pooh-pooh verboten vaginal intercourse. Thanks to the Supreme Court they can enjoy a sodomy spree under Grandma's quilt, with no more threat of being caught like running deer in the headlights on "Cops." Again.

BitchSlap on virginity: If we are fortunate and escape an abusive introduction to sexuality, our first sexual feelings are probably self-discovery -- maybe as babies. I feel we lose our virginity to ourselves when find our own capacity for sensual pleasure. This is not a physical concept of "virginity" like an intact hymen, and the initial discovery of sexual sensation is not an interpersonal act like being penetrated by another person. It is between your own body and mind. This isn't a loss; it's a find -- an innate gift to be cultivated simply for the lifelong joy of it. Like learning to sing or to draw. Or to wank.

Enough philosophizing for the day. The sun on this cashmere certainly is warming my breasts and loins. Finished the maiden voyage BitchSlap column, my fingers steal under the laprobe, feeling the moist heat from my parted lips to my parted legs. Lost in the moment, I'm drowsing again in the sun, I turn my head, open my eyes, and realize the clean-up guy emptying trash cans on deck is taking in my under-the-covers sensual exploration and is about to indulge in some of his own, his hands heading toward his zipper, eyes locked on mine.

OK, then! I am an exhibitionist, but I like to choose my audience. So, I sit up, hands over the covers, shut down my laptop, watch the little apple go dark and kick off my cashmere. Stretching my writer's cramped frame to the sun, I exuberantly twirl and twirl on the highly-polished hardwood deck in the sea air like Mary Tyler Moore tossing her beret -- when I nearly hurtle overboard. In mid-spin I twist the carelessly discarded cashmere robe around a sportive strappy platform wedgie. "Motherfucker!" I ejaculate primly. Fuming for only a moment, I regain my tenuous footing (with the gallant assistance of my admiring cleanup guy) and wonder, where is that eager, nimble, leering gamine to lend an arm and squire me back to my groovily-appointed stateroom?

And there's that sassy boi now, jauntily heading this way with a frosty beverage on a tray for me. Jangled as I am, I will simply have to take it in my stateroom. Nothing like a spritzer and a spritz on the marble bidet to refresh this soiled virgin -- that, a papaya cream massage from the boi and a siesta with my trusty Magic Wand . . . All hands on deck, Tidbit!

Elizabeth F. Stewart, AKA "The Bitch of Dupont Circle" (BoDC), was lovingly given this Nomme de Perv by her mentor in the leather community, because she is a bitch, as well as a denizen of that 'hood in Washington DC. She is an art director (see www.efstewart.com) and writer (see also www.pervgrrl.org), whose fave hobbies include cracking wise, dressing up, getting off, telling others where to get off, and arranging things in an attractive fashion.