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I don't see Xena and Gabrielle as having had a sexual relationship. At all. I just don't see it. I see them as the very best of friends, soulmates, family, but not as sexual lovers (not in the main Xena and Gabrielle life we followed, mostly through Ancient Greece).

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Platonic (an intimate relationship, but not sexual).

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BUT, on a certain level, I did see it as a lesbian love story.

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Throughout the story, I see Xena as bisexual and Gabrielle as straight. Xena has those kind of feelings for Gabrielle (sexual) the whole time. Gabrielle starts out as totally oblivious to how Xena feels. Gabrielle is into men, but she hasn't even had sex with a man yet. Gabrielle is a virgin on many levels. Whereas Xena has tons of experience with men and women.

Xena "has many skills". Xena knows "the pinch". (Metaphors for Xena being a skilled lesbian - bisexual - lover.)

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When Gabrielle is going to marry a man in Season 2, Xena has a look and feeling (as she says goodbye to Gabrielle) of, 'Didn't we have something between us? Oh, who am I kidding? You're just a naive girl. I'm too old, too experienced for you. But... It's just that... Damn. I wish I was your lover.' But all Xena wants is Gabrielle to be happy and she seems pretty damn happy. Xena has to let her go.

They kiss each other goodbye, casually, as friends. Xena has those feelings for Gabrielle, but Gabrielle doesn't even know what sex feels like (with anybody). Gabrielle may not even know who she really is or what she really wants. Gabrielle wanted to go on adventures with Xena, to escape her small town. Then, not too long after, she wants to settle down with a guy.

Gabrielle is discovering herself. Xena is discovering herself in a different way, a sort of opposite direction. A rediscovering or redefining (really for both of them). It's like Xena is on one end of a spectrum and Gabrielle is on the complete opposite end of that same spectrum. Xena wants to return to innocence and Gabrielle wants to break away from innocence and naivety. Both want to be more like the other. Ying and yang.

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Then Xena's evil past comes back to ruin Gabrielle's peaceful heterosexual married life (the murder of Gabrielle's husband and her rape in Xena's temporary absence to find vengeance). Xena feels tremendous guilt. Xena's experience, her past, her accruement of her many skills (in essence), has destroyed Gabrielle's heterosexual life, her idea of heaven on earth.

Xena feels tremendous guilt. Xena can never take back what her dark past has taken from Gabrielle: her innocence and naivety - something Xena valued and loved in Gabrielle.

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When Xena dies soon after (in Season 2) she doesn't verbally confess her feelings for Gabrielle (as there is hope for her return), but she does kiss her, telling her that she'll always be there (even if she's gone).

Xena respects Gabrielle too much to try and push her into a sexual relationship, something Gabrielle is nowhere near ready for (if she'll ever be ready).

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Throughout the series, Xena secretly desires and yearns for Gabrielle to learn more and explore the lesbian side of Xena's life, but Gabrielle is still finding herself (Seasons 3 and 4).

In Season 6, we really see Xena wanting this love from Gabrielle more than ever. Xena can see Gabrielle is possibly ready. (Besides the obvious butch-look conversion Gabrielle has taken in the second half of the overall series) Gabrielle is learning everything Xena knows, she's becoming more like Xena, and accruing "many skills".

When Gabrielle is in a sleeping-beauty coma-state (in the Ring trilogy) Xena's kiss is like an awakening in Gabrielle and represents Xena's desires (lust being one of them), not just for Gabrielle, but in knowing (and rediscovering) who she is. By saving Gabrielle from her vegetative state (a metaphor for Gabrielle's dead-end former-home-life in Poteidaia), Xena not only allowed Gabrielle to find herself, but ignited a flame in Xena to live life beyond her dark past (subverting suicide) and have hope for the future. That future represented in Gabrielle.

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Xena, for Gabrielle's birthday, has a poem written for her. It's basically a thinly veiled confession of Xena's (lesbian) love for Gabrielle - an Ancient Greek mixtape. It's as if Xena has seen Gabrielle change so much, that this is her sheepish confession, in the (probably unlikely) hopes of getting out of the 'just friends-zone' - especially after suggestive moments that Gabrielle might be ready (like earlier, when Gabrielle pinched or poked Xena underwater in the lake and Xena couldn't believe she did that). But Xena knows it'll all just remain a fantasy in her mind.

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But when Xena gets word from Japan and they go to the ends of the world together, Xena knows their time together may be up and over. Xena reveals to Gabrielle of someone she knew like her once, an early-mirror to Gabrielle, another unrequited lesbian love Xena had. Gabrielle gets jealous and something is further stirred in her. A fire she may have had within her for some time now, but is starting to maybe finally understand what that feeling is.

When Xena knows that she must die, she confesses to Gabrielle how she really feels about her. How she's always felt about her. She reveals to Gabrielle "the pinch" (in this moment, a metaphor for lesbian-sex).

This is the blunt and direct confession of the lesbian friend (Xena) confessing to their straight friend (Gabrielle) that she loves her in that way and there's no more hiding it. Gabrielle is stoic and hides her true feelings, denying any feeling that their time together is over. While Gabrielle doesn't reciprocate Xena's confession, in that moment, she shares it.

Gabrielle's kissing Xena('s spirit) is her reciprocation of the kind of love Xena desired from Gabrielle. This kiss is Gabrielle's confession that she loves Xena in that way too. This is Gabrielle coming to a new fruition and finding another side to herself, a side she's always been searching for but has only fully realized at this moment. Mirroring the kiss Xena gives Gabrielle (in her sleeping beauty state - Xena finding and saving herself by saving Gabrielle from her dull village life), Gabrielle kissing Xena is a symbol of Gabrielle finally finding and saving herself by redeeming Xena's dark past via being Xena's guiding light.

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Gabrielle finally learns "the pinch". She finally catches the chakram ( a circle symbolizing femininity - whereas before, Gabrielle's symbol was a straight stick - that then transformed into a separate path via the sais - a more dangerous weapon that has a straight point with curving prones ). The chakram being a full circle with two halves, a duality, not only from within, but representing the unity between her and Xena, a symbol they now share. Gabrielle is now whole.

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Gabrielle is now ready to be with Xena (in that way, on that level) but their time has come to an end, it's reached its climax. Their journey together was the love, the way and path to finding out who they truly were in what they wanted to be. Xena has learned (or is reinforced) from Gabrielle that it's not about her own selfish desires for herself, but it's about the greater good - that ideal they shared together, that reason that brought them together and put them on the path to finding out who they truly were through each other. Who they wanted to be is now who they are. Their opposite ends of the spectrum have now come together and joined in a perfect balance (ying/yang) that canceled their opposite-ends out - becoming one, a whole. They'll always be together because they have essentially, and symbolically, become each other - two halves of a circle.

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On one level, this is ultimately the story of a bisexual (lesbian) that has an unrequited sexual-love for her best friend. Xena finally wins Gabrielle over (on that level) in the end, but Xena realizes that the greater good is more important than her own personal pleasures and desires.

Gabrielle now feels how Xena felt: "I don't care. You're all that matters to me." Xena has a knowing look of recognition to that feeling, how she always felt about Gabrielle. (This specific moment is kind of like the scene in The Empire Strikes Back between the self-sacrificing Han Solo (Xena) finally getting a confession of love out of Princess Leia (Gabrielle), complete with a kiss. This is like Xena saying, "I know".)

A confession and return of that kind of love, at the very end, is everything to Xena. Xena finally got that kind of love she always wanted from Gabrielle while still maintaining a semblance of Gabrielle's innocence and naivety that Xena fell in love with in the first place. She died knowing her love was happily returned.

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