Kat...... I think the whole point in this Stargate thing is that the concept of Stargate has been built up by various, disparate groups of people, such as fans, the actual writers of the shows and the fan fiction writers. Everyone has their own take on the whole thing. Even the actual show's writers seem to have slightly different viewpoints and frequently contradict each other. Especially when it comes to the actual physiology of the Goa'uld.
The only thing one can do is to take the most logical idea and apply it. In this case, it could be (and I MEAN could, not that it IS the case) that the Goa'uld are based on something similar to the honey bee. They have a queen who produces the larvae, the rest are drones and a few males who follow her when she flies from the hive in order to mate with her and it's only the strongest who actually manages it. I guess you could say that there are very few queen Goa'uld and they are very special and have to take a female host, maybe something to do with human feromones or female hormones in order to actually produce the larvae.
The rest of the symbiotes may have hermaphrodite characteristics and therefore have the ability to go either one way or the other depending upon the sex of the host. If this was the case then they may not be as gender confused as a human hermaphrodite born into human society, where gender differentiation is much more structured. So they have the ability to take on the sexual aspects of the sex of the host and probably can jump from one sex to another. In that sort of structure only the strongest Goa'uld males would be allowed to mate with her and produce their own lineage.
She may well even have within her the ability to 'self-pollinate' so to speak and doesn't actually require anything like the act of mating to produce the larvae. This would offer an explanation as to why Hathor only required the DNA from Daniel (although it was implied that this was given through a sexual act). She only needed that to ensure that her larvae would have the ability to blend with human hosts. But those larvae wouldn't have been from Daniel's line, they would have been from hers.
These are only suggestions and wisps of ideas based on a mish mash of knowledge of various species on our own planet. In reality another species from a different environment would have it's own procreation characteristics and they wouldn't necessarily have to follow anything like ours.
I think that your original question about love is to do with the HUMAN idea of mating and procreation rather than what might be the case for an alien species. That particular emotion may not be part and parcel of an alien psyche. And I suppose that the human host's physical needs would have a considerable influence on the symbiote which it would have to satisfy, otherwise you'd have a whole lot of sex-starved Goa'uld running about.
Mind you.....that could explain why they're so aggressive all of the time!
LOL
