XENA fans: would the show have been better if the X/G relationship had been explicitly sexual?

X/G, of course, refers to Xena/Gabrielle, as everyone who has any interest in the show at all should know.

Please explain your reasoning. I will give my thoughts in the next post; first I have to post the poll.

Yes, if the show was on HBO or Skinemax. Otherwise, why bother?

In before the poll!

No, they have to leave something for the porn parody.

Nope. Treading the line is the way to go in this situation, 100%. See the old Jump the Shark trope, “They Did It”.

The usual feckless sci-fi threats.

I voted No, but for reasons you did not name. Specifically, I don’t think the leads were always physically intimate. And I don’t mean that they started off as friends and then grew to be more; I mean that they had sexual peaks and valleys, and that there were probably long stretches in which they simply didn’t have sex. Theirs was not an emotionally equal relationship, because Xena was passionate about Gabrielle both physically and emotionally, whereas Gabrielle shared the emotional bond and could take or leave the sex. Or, perhaps, she wasn’t really interested in monogamy, despite parroting what she was expected to feel. Gabrielle was never jealous of Xena’s relationships with men; she only got threatened by other women, and more about Xena’s emotional involvements than her physical activity.

Yes. Because I didn’t masturbate enough as a child.

Ditto this. I probably would’ve friction burned my dick off. Not cool.

I was under the understanding that, later in the show’s run, it was made explicit (as in, unambiguous, not as in seeing naughty bits)? And I also thought it was pretty clear at the time that the rumors started that Gabrielle was still a virgin, though most fans apparently didn’t see the same coded message I did.

No, Gabrielle was married, briefly. (Psycho Barbie Callisto killed her husband.) She was also interested in a couple of male characters, although they never went far.

“Coded” messages & rumors? Tons of them. The love between Xena & Gabrielle was a very strong theme, to the end of the show. But a sexual relationship was never made explicit. Nor was it denied.

(Xena is available for downloading on Netflix; I’m slowly working my way through, although I saw most of the show during its original run.)

I think you’re somewhat mistaken there. For one thing, Gabrielle’s dual virginities (both her lack of sexual experience and her blood innocence) were an issue during most of the first season. Moreover, it’s difficult to read the show as their ever being sexually exclusive to one another, even toward the end. When Xena is mysteriously pregnant, Gabrielle’s response is a casual “So when did you last see Hercules?”–meaning, to me, that she didn’t expect Xena to keep her knees crossed when they were apart.

Your records indicate otherwise. Are you telling me the NSA has it wrong?

Turn the page in my file. It mentions my penchant for sarcasm.

Page 12?

That was in the “Reasons AClockworkMelon must be assassinated, preferably with fire” so I deleted that paragraph and redacted the whole section so that it said not to kill you. Want me to put it back the way it was?

Yes, because dumb kids like me never realized they were supposed to be anything but friends. Some people just need things spelled out for them.

I can take all comers.

(Heh heh.)

You obviously haven’t seen every episode. There’s one that takes place in the real world (as in, they fuck the fourth wall) and a bunch of fans do nothing but talk about the two of them lezzing it out. They eventually summon Xena into the real world and hilarity ensues.

As a non-fan, I voted “No, but for a reason you did not name.”

I tried watching the show once but didn’t like it, and knowing what I was missing out on by not watching it would have added insult to injury.

Excuse me while I wash these feces off my shoes.

I voted “Yes for other reasons” because as a heterosexual male pig television viewer I think that every show would be better with more explicit lesbianism.

Sorry. Would you accept, “Yes, but not enough to become a fan”?

I have made a note of that, and the next time I pop over to Universal DVD Library world, I will get you the x-rated version of The Golden Girls. Same cast as we know from this world.