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

"Spread out in bed like a swastika!" The Bitch sleeps that way almost every night -- voluptuously solo. That glib description from a line in "The Women" by Clare Booth often lilts rhapsodically through my own slowly-waking mind, and I feel myself agreeing with that chic, wise, dame who winks smugly, "Living alone has its compensations!" It is luxurious to roll over in a seemingly boundless nest of warm, downy-yet-firm fluffy whiteness; to wake in my own space -- no mate to nag, no children to warp, no pets to herd, no plants to kill. Selfish? Perhaps. But, the Bitch never said she wasn't self-indulgent. And I am sparing others the aggravation of putting up with moi. Rather self-less, non? Oui.

There are yet more advantages to singletude. Let me count the ways. One more glowing mention of Hitachi's Magic Wand in this column, and the Bitch should demand a seven-figure endorsement contract like the professional sexual athlete she is. World records have been set for endurance, sprints, and pole vault, at the very least.

Solo life is particularly propitious for the odd booty call. Select, worthy suitors ring up way late with nasty on their minds. I may gleefully entertain them for a change of pace, if so inclined. But I'd never have the option for such lewd spontaneity with a live-in. It's so "Three's Company" to relegate a disgruntled roomie to the sidewalk to conduct one's impromptu assignation.

Another bullet dodged by living alone is the Dreaded Decor Duel. The Bitch is at her pickiest when it comes to matters of visual taste, because, the Bitch is a big fag. When I purchased my groovy townhouse, I wandered wistfully through home furnishings stores thinking, "Boo hoo hoo, if only there was a special someone to share this once-in-a-lifetime experience." Then, from the next aisle, arose this shrill, lisping static, "I won't have an indigo backsplash in my kitchen! It totally clashes with my cobalt counters! You have no taste and always have to get your way!" Ha! The solo Bitch has fabulous taste and she always gets her solo way.

Selfish, perhaps; but she loves her family, her friends, her Mr. X. -- and her personal space. "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," Virginia Woolf famously declared in 1929, when female writers and artists were hardly taken seriously. My Aunt Marion dreamt of being a painter in 1929 but ultimately retired a "spinster" Commander in the U.S. Navy. She left me a modest inheritance as well as the privilege of time and space to make art and to write. As part of her legacy, she also bequeathed me the Family Bitch's Tiara of Thorns.

My aunt's choice to remain single, fighting for career advancement in WWII, would seem a simple lifestyle choice in today's terms, but it was inherently political, as is any woman's choice to remain unmarried in any era. However, in 2003, it is shocking to realize that the right for some Americans to remain single without penalization is potentially subject to political challenge even today.

The case for legal access to equity in marriage benefits for gays and lesbians doesn't much touch the hearts or budgets of the Bush White House, but they want to allocate billions of our tax dollars for this worthy cause, without which our civilization would be lost, lost, I tell you: Promoting Heterosexual Marriage!

And, why not create more incentives to increase heterosexual marriage rates, as it's such a raging success! According to Divorce Magazine, 54 percent of all het marriages actually end in divorce. As many gay marriage advocates would point out to The Godfearing, who rabidly and dogmatically persecute the perverted for "threatening the American family," this demonstrates hets are tearing apart their own exalted American family with no help whatever from The Godless Sodomites they "love" (but whose sodomy they hate).

It would be swell if one's marital status could be simply a matter of choice, but choice is only one factor. As Mother and Mick Jagger have told us all our lives, "you can't always get what you want." Free will is confusing. The Bush White House wants to simplify that by reauthorizing their version of the "Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program" (TANF). Having already passed the House, this bill goes before the Senate Finance Committee this September, but to pass now, its advocates must swing votes on both sides of the aisle.

It's long and complex, so to grossly oversimplify this bill in half-cocked BitchSlap style, itt purports to be "welfare reform," but, also heaved onto that titular compost heap is the preposterous assumption that marriage will magically improve a woman's quality of life. Would marriage to a man help a poor woman who's already struggling to meet qualifications for "workfare?" In many states, she has little time for education to advance herself, between the long hours at her mandatory minimum-wage job, and time spent caring for her kids without subsidized daycare. A supportive partner would be welcomed, but automatically expecting any person to ably fill that slot is delusional. No, sadly, a butch doesn't count.

Perhaps one of those black tie swells at $2,000-a-plate Bush fundraisers should go without his dinner and offer one of the workfare single mothers that cash not to marry some abusive, no-account loser.

Throughout the bill are various marriage promotions and incentives, curiously yoked with other programs such as abstinence-only sex education, pointlessly leaching funds away from numerous other, critical areas. The purpose of this bill is expertly and articulately explained in the "Testimony of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund on 'Welfare Reform Reauthorization.'"

It is well worth a click and a browse for a good scare, but here is a quick excerpt:

The Bitch isn't biased. Much. Make up your own minds. Read the GOP point of view.

Let us dispense with that Great Unpleasantness and return to the Bitch's bright airy boudoir, sinking deeply back into the white downy duvet, the fluffy pillows, the subtle fragrance of fine, imported organic personal care products. You are getting sleeeepy. . . feel the cool breeze through the open window, lightly rustling the white silken organza of the pristine summer bed hangings, like a peacock feather tracing your skin as it ripples and shimmers in the muted beams of . . . aaaahhhh.

Yes, the joy of singletude, waking up, loving lolling luxuriantly solo, supported weightlessly by eight all-important down bed pillows -- two full-body-sized -- very therapeutic for the Bitch's bum back. She had serious surgery several years ago for that, and while languishing in recovery in the private hospital room one night, loopdedoo from the ever-so-convenient morphine-on-demand, the Bitch, humbled and practically paralyzed, required the night nurse's assistance to turn her over like a damn pancake. A strong, friendly female nurse, new to the floor, came in to skillfully turn her. The morphine was babbling: Ohhh, how I looooved all the pillows the nurse wedged me in with and how I have soooo many pillows in my bed at home and there is hardly aaaany room for anyone else in the bed and that is tooo baaaad and I looove my pillows blah blah blah and then, she tickled the dope-addled Bitch pink, with The Perfect Summation on Sleeping Solo: "Pillows are better than a man in the bed. Pillows won't wake you up with trying to stick their dick up your ass."

If a woman wants to get screwed in the ass, she will tell her lovers. She needs no incentives or governmental assistance. So Mr. President Bush, sir, thank you for your offering of the colorful, fragrant cherry-flavored edible lube. However, as you received no invitation to our boudoir, you will please remove yourself at once. And, pleeease take your friend Mr. Ashcroft with you. Smithers, release the hounds!

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.