Mais revenons a nos moutons. I have not, actually, seen much straight pornography (in the sense of images of women which sexually titillated me). And, for sure, I haven't looked at any since once, when I was seven years old. But I have heard straight pornography in adjacent video booths at the porno shops. One cannot escape it: The female participants in it are ever so much louder than anything heard in any but the most effeminate gay pornography. Their shrill cries of extasy are piercing; horrifying even, when it dawns on you how closely their extasy seems to resemble anguish. Sometimes gay male Brazilians, notably, get raucous in their sexual exertions, and sometimes they are very much in earnest--but they are always good-humored, and never display the least hint of the awful (patently phony) seriousness of female/effeminate sexuality. Venus ridens is apparently a polite fiction of Latin poets, as Ogresses are of French fabulists.

On the other hand, great heat of passion between masculine men--not always, but often-- is conveyed with a conspiratorial smile, or grin (not a chuckle, for that would be disruptive) of amusement/appreciation/congratulation--exactly like the indulgent grin with which men approve the lawless exuberance of little boys. And, remarkably enough, it is exactly like the slight, wide-eyed smile with which women approve the tears and bad temper of little girls.