There is often serious food for thought in comedy and Sunday's 2007 International Comedy Festival, held at Backyaad on Constant Spring Road, was no exception.

This time around, the lesson was in the different reaction to Michele Buteau putting the microphone to her crotch and Will Sylvince doing the same thing some time later in the stand-up comedy show. (Both, incidentally, are based in the U.S. but have Caribbean roots, Buteau having Jamaican and Haitian heritage and Sylvince strictly on the Haitian side).

In the relatively early going Buteau sat on a chair and spread her legs wide, scratching away with the microphone as she imitated how people would be happy to get even herpes on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The people were not amused. They wanted her gone and made it known.

However, when Sylvince, the second to last performer of the evening, put the microphone to his crotch and stroked it, imitating a man masturbating while half-asleep and watching a porno movie, there was laughter all around. And not any dibby dibby laughter either, but some real belly laughs.

And I thought, there goes the difference between a female and a male crotch. One is nasty, except when used for insertion, the other is cool.

Crotch itching

OK, so before she went crotch itching Buteau had not been moving her audience at all (it did not help when she asked 'y'all get Oprah down here?'). And Sylvince had been tearing the house down before he went stroking and he had warned that he was about to get nasty.

But when Lemon came out after Buteau, a man from the audience shouted "which mic you have?" and he duly went back for a change (which may have been just a departure backstage for show). When Apache Chief and Sarge came out after Sylvince, though, there was no such question. And it was two of them, so one of them had to have the microphone that was at the man's crotch, as there was one for the performer and one for host Owen 'Blakka' Ellis.

Maybe if Sylvince's joke had flopped, the question would have arisen, but as the events unfolded on Sunday evening, I can only conclude that women's crotches mean nastiness.

Incidentally, Blakka pointed out at the International Comedy Fest that all the Jamaican curse words are related to the vagina. And I was happy when he sent out a safe sex message at the very end of the night, after Chief and Sarge had spoofed the HIV/AIDS ad by Ainsley, reminding all to use a condom.

There was humour in it, though, as he related a man asking if the virus could be caught from a toilet seat. "Yes, if you zip down before the next man get up," Blakka said.