My hot take (I say, like I have only one) on VoxVal is that Vox made Valentino worse. To Vox, most sex is violence, especially sex with a man. This turns into him liking it rough and painful and really it's more torture than anything else. (This is why he was in love with Alastor.) Valentino really isn't like that. Yeah, obviously consent is not a factor to him, but he wants his partners to like him. He makes Angel pretend to like him, hanging off of his arm in public, agreeing with him, defending him. The ValAngel sex scene we see is literally missionary sex. He drugs Angel with Love Potion. Valentino doesn't want his partners to fight or to act like they don't want it.
Vox does. Vox isn't interested in vanilla sex - he gets off on violence. He doesn't actually want Angel hypnotized: he wants Angel terrified of him and what he can do to Angel. Fear is intoxicating. I do, ultimately, headcanon that Vox is subbing for Val more often than not, and that is Vox encouraging Valentino to give into his worst impulses. Be more violent, be impulsive, become more deranged, don't worry about the harm you could cause. (And then Vox gets pissy when Val is like that outside of the bedroom, brings that violence to the public eye, like Vox hadn't been spending years trying to mold Valentino into a new version of Alastor. Like reveling in bloodshed isn't exactly what Alastor would do. Like Vox isn't actually turned on by it.)
