The long pause before Picard spits out: "No" was one of the most effective lines of dialogue in any episode of Trek in years. In that moment he was once again the Picard from the aftermath of the Battle of Wolf 359 and from FC.
The hell with chairs. He once MADE SWEET LOVE d over an entire TV show by stealing it's last episode.
Bev was willing ready and able to get all up into Odan's new host sight unseen, and only pivoted because he was now female. It's not exactly homophobia, but any man would have done. Any man at all, so her excuse about the body hopping being exhausting was less about the hopping than where he hopped to.
You'd think the UPN suits in the 90's would totally go for it to add to the titillation factor. Like a Xena/Gabrielle thing.
The godawful "catsuit" Jeri Ryan was sewn into was probably as far as they were prepared to go. Given the "titillation" factor they were clearly determined to go for with that...outfit, I remain eternally thankful that Ms Ryan is such a stellar actress. The character would have been awful otherwise.
If Odan had had a few more bodies before this episode, then it's not lascivious to claim that he had enjoyed himself sexually as a straight man and a straight woman, so why should how he enjoys sex as straight man or a strait woman be limited to whether he is a man or a woman. Pegging.
The Xena Gabrielle thing was a Secret. Lucy and Rene weren't aware that they were playing lesbians until season 3.
I think a relationship with Chakotay would turn any woman gay. Seriously though, no issues with Seven being gay, bi, pan or whatever. I wouldn't have liked Janeway/Seven on Voyager because I see it as a mother/daughter type relationship but I know there are a lot of people who think otherwise.
I think I read somewhere that the "Riker its on chairs" thing had to do with his uniform being so uncomfortable. And yet people argue that killing Maddox is so much more poignant because Jurati and he were lovers, not just close friends... Yes. My issue with this episode is that it is often praised as some daring statement against heteronormativity or pro LGBT message, which.. it just isn't.
She was already in love with Odan, and they were both probably planning their long term futures together. Pike comes to mind. If he had a girlfriend/wife just before the chair, and then the chair happens, and she leaves because, it's hard to have a conversation with the boy, and his dick melted off, is she still a good person?
If she was in a relationship with Chakotay and then found herself to be attracted to women afterward, then she already had an orientation that wasn't strictly heterosexual (or even involved heterosexuality at all.) As others have noted elsewhere, she may even be asexual.
The trauma could have put her off sex, if she didn't have an avid sex life in Unimatrix Zero, which is a life, 20 years of memories, that Seven did not have on file. But then it could have taken years in the unimatrix to over come her assimilation trauma. So, sadly, she had to do it twice. Seven must have had a "partner" in Workforce, where she lived a life with false memories for a month, even if there was no mention of an affair in the script.
Detached from the Borg after so long from such a young age, one might assume she was just following the Doctor's and janeway's expectations since assimilating was how she related to knowledge. She could have realized she was fed a load of doodly squat on Voyager when she came across Lesbian porn on the holodeck one day.