Oh come on. I think everyone understands what a shared bed means, and it’s not what you are talking about.
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whe are not talking “sharing bed” but sharing surface. so i did some extreme examples.
And also, if you have a bunk bed sharing bed is different that sharing double bed.
in 2020 I was in 18 countries and in 21 in 13 so far. Given my extensive travelling, in a few but some circumstances I have both been hosted and hosted/both genders in a shared bed. IMMHO A shared bed is Not a shared body or an invitation for sex. It is a place for sleeping.
I have never had any challenges. I am friendly, yet pretty straightforward, clear and assertive and I think this is a cultural/religious/personal biased/limitation.
On one occasion, I arrived in Makati/PHP and my younger female host had said yes to an emergency request and had given away her couch to a lovely British Guy, Dan.
My early flight arrived at 5.00 and headed to her. Upon arrival, she opened the door, half way asleep, in the darkness, grabbed my hand and told me sorry the couch is full, you can sleep with me; here is your side of the bed good night. The three of us spend a lovely week together and had one of my most joyful CS experience. To date, the three of us still remain friends.
We can try and filter/regulate/box as much as we want the human experience. Humans will be humans.
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I think the issue arises when the guest finds out about the accommodation arrangement too late. I would target solutions to avoid that to happen instead of limiting the accommodation arrangement options.
I knew of many that came to my place without properly reading the description, surprised to get a double bed on their own, in a private room. While that was a positive surprise, it also made evident that they could as well ended up in an unwanted accommodation with another host.
I would make it evident in the host request page, when the host has either not explicitly set the accommodation arrangement in their profile, or they’re offering a shared room/surface. Also having the photos of the accommodation in that request page would help getting guests used to expect those photos and be cautious when that info is missing.
Once the terms are clear and easily accessible, I would let each person the freedom to offer and choose their next experience, without limiting the options.
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George Washington shared a bed with Alexander Hamilton at Valley Forge. The arrangement seemed to have worked out in fighting the British. Aside from that, it has been forgotten in our time that sharing beds was very common among men till the 20th century. In the 1700s and 1800s innkeepers regularly assigned men to share beds with complete strangers. It was not always a great arrangement to be sure, but then inns and houses were smaller and they were difficult to heat. Larger houses only came into being in recent decades followed by global warming, etc. Sharing beds with complete strangers was also a democratic arrangement as well and our diligent historians also have records of Washington being checked in to inns and asigned to sleep with someone he did not know. Sometimes the beds had three men in them. Even as a plantation owner, it was the only choice available to Washington unless someone opened his house up to him (as well not uncommon). No records show that people considered this fact of assigning the high and low to the same beds at inns to be anything abnormal or even remarkable. I would say all the fuss and slander against sharing beds is unpatriotic and disrespectful to out founding forefathers.
@Ontonagon not sure if this is a ChatGPT-sourced troll post, but it deffo is irrelevant IMO.
@dubrox 's last post here seems on point to me.
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Absolutely.
I m so surprised that Couchers is thinking of not letting this option!!!
On the opposite the important point is to make this Shared bed situation clearly available!
So that there’s no possible misunderstanding with shared surface option , that can be confusing!
And in Old CS, depending on the website/ or App and language,
The shared Bed option turned to shared surface!
Once you make it clear that this is a share bed. Then everyone, with the help of the comment of previous guests, will choose if he wants to request or not!
If you don’t put this option,
It will happen… but people won’t be clearly aware in advance!.
I have hosted more than 60 CS with shared bedding ( double bed) situation.
And everyone was fine. As I clearly explain and always double check before accepting
Absolute Yuck, with a big, big “Y”. No experience with this, but I’ve been hitchhiking for 44 years, and have had more than 5,500 rides, so I should have met those “100 predators” many times over. So how many did I meet? One, yes, just a single one, during my very first trip in 1980.
DO NOT GENERALIZE!
Why are you shouting @prino? We’ve kind of got to generalise in order to try keep people safe, no?
It’s a matter of filtering isn’t it? Give people the option to say if their bed is shared. Give people the option to filter out those people. Do this as part of onboarding.