Document wrote on Thursday about a new filtering option on hotels.com, a service for reserving hotel rooms via the internet.
Gay-friendly accommodations
In the past, you have been able to tick off family-friendly and business travellers. The new filter has to do with sexual preferences, but only applies to the LGBTQ category, hetero-friendly hotels are not a separate category so far.
Gays already have specialised websites for gay-friendly accommodation. They also have a flood of social services that help them find little gems of accommodation.
Preferences in the bedroom
My wife and I have a small three-room apartment that we rent out on a short-term basis. It has given us friendship and acquaintance with people from all over the world, thick and thin, tall and short, pretty and varieties of pretty.
They are mostly all sympathetic and expectant when they arrive and we don’t ask what they are doing in bed, but we are aware that most people can lose some control during sexual arousal. It would still break with common folk custom to ask for information about the guests’ preferences for activities related to the act of reproduction.
Coincidences?
The reason we are following up on Document’s article on filtering LGBTQ-friendly hotels is that for a period we were listed as just that, LGBTQ-friendly.
It started with a gay couple booking the apartment. After them came a stream of gays, lesbians and people of letters. We found it striking, but at first wrote it off as coincidence.
Before we go any further, it might be good to have said that we are neutral to people’s sexual, political, religious, etc. preferences as long as they behave like people.
Cute gays
When fridge magnets started to appear pointing to erotic websites, we concluded that the people of letters must have recommended us in closed groups online – and it didn’t matter to us, it’s a shop we run, we house for those who are nice and it pays for itself.
The gays in particular were sweet and grateful guests, they are careful, they don’t destroy things and leave the apartment clean and tidy – if we are allowed to generalise. The female members we met were more masculine, but decent enough.
No Sunday school
The flow of gays, lesbians and confused people of letters increased to a level where it became a bit noticeable to the neighbors in an otherwise conservative, Catholic neighborhood. But then it ended – after a memorable experience with Finnish leather jackets.
Five Finnish leathermen, large, brutal-looking men, dressed in black from head to toe with a leather whip in their belt and an attitude that told you that different norms apply here than those you learned in Sunday school, booked the apartment.
The mood rose when the drain cover was lifted
After a few days they had blocked the drain from one of the toilets and we called in craftsmen to fix it. Two cheerful and sociable local workers did the job. The Finns thawed and almost seemed to have a sense of humour when the drain cover was open and the dirty work was seen.
I don’t know what happened after that, but the flow from the alphabet number ended. Our conclusion is that they must have posted something online that there was a lot of crap associated with that apartment. They also gave us a bad review on Airbnb.
Compatible family and LGBTQ friendly?
Since then, the guest list has normalised, the average guests are harmonious Central European couples with two children, possibly two couples travelling together. They are in the most friendly sun, food, wine and holiday mode – they give us top reviews and often come back after a couple of years.
We haven’t missed the Finns. They had spilled blood on half of our expensively purchased linen bed set. It could not be removed and had to be thrown away. But that is not unusual; tables, sofas, towels, bedding – most things – break easily in the rental industry.
With this experience, we think that hotels should think about compatibility before advertising with both family and LGBTQ friendliness.
html friendly
At the time of writing, we have a visit from another category of people of letters, three internet nomads from Japan who wander around the world without skipping work. We call them the html people.