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I'm wondering if people would find it easier to see a sexual relationship between X&G if one of them was male.

Not me. In fact, if one of them *was* male, and TPTB had gone with an overtly sexual aspect to the relationship, I would *definitely* have lost a lot of interest in the show and possibly even stopped watching it even sooner than I did.

Actually that's a tendency in many shows, movies, etc that I find endlessly frustrating: that any close relationship between male and female must be presented as sexual in nature. (Exhibit A: Kira and Odo on DS9, in which a complex, powerful relationship forged during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor and based on deep and abiding ties of mutual respect was suddenly and out of the blue turned into a romantic relationship for no apparent reason other than All Close Bonds Between Male and Female Must Be Sexual In Nature. Not that I'm holding a grudge or anything. :P ) I find it frustrating because I feel that human nature and human relationships have so many other dimensions than the sexual, but apparently it's too difficult to write those other dimensions, so everything gets reduced to the sexual because that's the path of least resistance.

That was one of the things I really enjoyed and found refreshing about Firefly: the powerful and unbreakable, yet completely platonic bond between Mal and Zoe, based on their wartime experiences together. Sometimes I'm almost glad the show ended when it did, because I have a sinking feeling if it had continued, Joss may have ended up taking the easy route and sexualizing their relationship, just so that it fit into a neat little box.

I apologize for the tl;dr (that's "too long; don't read" to you fandom_wank fans )--it's just that this is a pet peeve of mine, and it's hit a bit of a sore spot at the moment: I recently wrote a fanfic set in the Fallout 'verse and dealing with a male/female relationship that I had loosely modeled on Mal and Zoe. I had taken great pains with my depiction of the relationship as completely platonic, yet very strong, complex and powerful, and was quite pleased with the way it had turned out, only to have one of the very first reviews I received for the be along the lines of "This is great, but I wanted to see (the two characters) have sex!" *punches fist right through computer screen* Of course, one might say that I got what I deserved for posting it on the Pit of Voles. Anyway, I know that different people like different things, and your mileage, as always, may vary; I just sometimes get vaguely depressed at what I see as pop culture's often-simplistic insistence that all facets of the human experience can and must be reduced to sex.

Oh, and for the record, I voted "Soulmates without sex."