what may or may not be hard reality

Dude. You are so right.

And as much as we'd like Hollywood to be a moral conscience, they're not. They cater to all our sleezy sides and dark wishes, because *we* pay them to. Ellen's just an entertainer, and her audience is made up mostly of straight women, of course she should cater to their interests. Lucy Lawless has an audience of mainly lesbians and we all know that she's straight, but she doesn't go around talking about het sex (sure, there's a difference, lesbians are a minority with bad legal rights, and whatever, but still) and I'd probably stop listening to her if she did. (how come gays and lesbians are allowed to be grossed out by het sex, but if a straight person is grossed out by gay/lesbian sex they're homophobes?) Everyone *knows* that Ellen is gay, and she never ever denies it, she just doesn't bring it up very often *on her talkshow*... but she's referred to 'my girlfriend', and 'the coming out episode', and most of the time she says 'our' and 'we'... a casual watcher might miss it, but if you're a regular there're mentions, and all in relation to normal, day-to-day life. Pretty frequently.