What is Same Sex Relationship?

A same-sex relationship is a relationship between two persons of the same gender and can take many forms, from romantic and sexual, to non-romantic close relationships. The relationship is mainly associated with gay and lesbian people. In their essential psychological respects, these relationships are regarded equivalent to heterosexual relationships.
The term same-sex relationship is not strictly related to sexual orientation of participants. As bisexual, pansexual and also heterosexual people may participate in same-sex relationships, some activists^[claim that referring to a same-sex relationship as a "gay relationship" or a "lesbian relationship" is a form of bisexual erasure. The term same-sex marriage is used similarly.

Same-sex relationships in history

The lives of many historical figures, including Socrates, Alexander the Great, Lord Byron, Edward II, Hadrian, Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Oscar Wilde, Vita Sackville-West, Alfonsina Storni and Christopher Marlowe included or were centered upon love and sexual relationships with people of their own sex. Terms such as gay or bisexual have been often applied to them; some, such as Michel Foucault, regard this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary construction of sexuality foreign to their times, though others challenge this.

Same-sex relationships can be grouped into three categories:

Association	Annotations	Se
Egalitarian	Features two partners with no relevance to age. Additionally, both play the same socially accepted sex role as heterosexuals of their own sex. This is exemplified by relationships currently prevalent in Western society between partners of similar age and sex.	Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
Gender-structured	Features each partner playing a different gender role. This is exemplified by traditional relations between men in the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and Central and South Asia, as well as Two-Spirit or shamanic gender-changing practices seen in native societies. In North America, this is best represented by the butch–femme practice.	Two-Spirit, and Hijra
Age-structured	Features partners of different ages, usually one adolescent and the other adult. This is exemplified by pederasty among the Classical Greeks or those engaged in by novice samurai with more experienced warriors; southern Chinese boy marriage rites; and ongoing Central Asian and Middle Eastern practices.	Shudo, Pederasty

Usually one form of same-sex relationship predominates in a society, although others are likely to co-exist. Historian Rictor Norton has pointed out  taht in ancient Greece, egalitarian relationships co-existed (albeit less privileged) with the institution of pederasty, and fascination with adolescents can also be found in modern sexuality, both opposite-sex and same-sex. Egalitarian same-sex relationships is the principal form present in the Western world, while age- and gender-structured same-sex relationships are less common. As a byproduct of growing Western cultural dominance, this form is spreading from Western culture to non-Western societies, although there are still defined differences between the various cultures.