But when you say gender isn't a factor, you are saying it doesn't matter if they are male or female, and that seriously doesn't make sense, in real life, or fiction.
Let's just take Kuro and Fai for example. How could their relationship be anything like it is now if they weren't both gay men? Even looking past their sexual identity which is obviously homosexual... you have two men, provoking and reacting to each other as two men would. Their struggles for power, their teasing of each other, and even violence towards each other wouldn't be the same if they weren't both the same sex. They wouldn't react to each other remotely the same if they weren't two men. And does anyone honestly think when they first looked at each other they didn't both notice and focus on just how male the other was? I can imagine their first thoughts now... XD
If you say gender doesn't matter, then I think you have to say sex itself doesn't matter, and at least in Fai and Kuro's case, I think they are highly sexual, highly gay... and very happy that way. *starting to forget what I was talking about* XD
I believe Clamp is trying to show that love is love, whether it's gay or straight. I don't believe for a minute they are trying to show characters who have no sexual identity. That is a huge part of what makes a person who they are. How you feel about members of the same or opposite sex is deeply ingrained in your personality, in ways we probably can't totally be aware of. It affects how you think and live, and react to other people. To deny that people have a sexual preference, in real life or art, makes absolutely no sense.
And I think this thread had been hopelessly off-topic for way too long now. *wondering if there is any actual 'canon' gloating left to do, or if I should lock*