Boyfriend doesn't want me sharing a bed with Bestfriend on trip

[okiedokieokayy]

My best friend of around 8 years (we met at uni) has been living abroad for over two years and is finally coming back to the UK next month. I've been so excited to see her. To mark the occasion and make sure we actually get proper quality time together, we booked a little countryside retreat about 4 hours from where I live. Logistics also played a part, as she's coming from visiting family and then jetting off again, so this was the easiest way to make it work. We've had this trip planned for about four months. She made the booking and I was more than happy for her to sort it.
For context, my friend and I have shared a bed completely platonically loads of times over the years. Drunkenly crashing at uni, travelling together as broke backpackers, visiting each other in different cities. It's just never been a thing. So when she booked the room it genuinely didn't occur to me to ask about the bed situation. I'd have been fine with sharing or a twin, it just wasn't a question that entered my head.
It only came up when I was chatting to my boyfriend of nearly two and a half years about the trip. Not the first conversation we've had about it, like I said I've been excited, but this time the topic of rooms came up. He'd assumed we had separate rooms and when I said no, it's one room with a double, his whole mood changed. He said he wasn't comfortable with me sharing a bed with her. I should mention here that my friend happens to be a lesbian, and he knows this. When I asked why it was suddenly an issue, he said it "just feels different" and that he wouldn't share a bed with someone who could potentially be attracted to him, so he didn't see why I would. I tried to explain that we've shared beds plenty of times before, that she's basically family to me, and that she has never once, in eight years, shown even a hint of interest in me like that. He wasn't having it.
He then asked me to at least check if the hotel had twin rooms. I did check, to keep the peace, and there aren't any available. His response was that I need to book a separate room. It's a lot of money and honestly I'm not sure I can afford it, especially for something I don't think is necessary.
The bit that's really bothering me is that I mentioned it to my friend. I told her what he'd said and after some conversation I floated the idea that maybe I should just book the separate room. She went quiet for a second and then said "erm, yeah, okay, if that's what you think's best." There was a definite tone in her voice, like she was holding something back and trying not to cause drama. And now I feel awful. I can't work out if I'm more upset that my boyfriend doesn't seem to trust my judgement, or worried that she's hurt by the inference, because let's be honest, the implication is that because she's gay she can't be trusted to share a bed with a friend, which feels really unfair on her.
I know some people here will use the "what if she was a guy" or "would you be okay with your boyfriend sharing a bed with a straight female friend" argument, and I get why, but I'm honestly not sure it's the same thing. This is someone I've known for nearly a decade with zero history or hint of anything romantic. I don't know how I feel and I don't know what to do. Do I pay for a room I can't really afford to keep my boyfriend happy, or hold my ground and risk a row? And is it unreasonable of me to feel a bit insulted on my friend's behalf?

Intimacy might be why you personally wouldn't share a bed with a friend, and that's a fair enough boundary for you to have. Plenty of people on this thread have told you the opposite though, that they don't experience bed sharing with a platonic friend as intimate in that way at all, so it's clearly not a universal truth, it's just your own line. But that's not really what I was getting at.

The reason a lot of straight men wouldn't share a bed with a gay friend isn't 'intimacy', it's the exact thing you brought up yourself further up this thread: the assumption that being near a gay man means there's a live possibility of something happening, so it needs managing. That's not a privacy preference, that's treating someone's orientation as a risk factor. You even said the majority here wouldn't support it, which is a claim about perceived danger, not about personal space.

And it's hard to take 'it's not about anyone being predatory' at face value from you specifically, given your other comment about lesbian friends who supposedly try to sabotage straight relationships out of jealousy or crushes, and women who 'don't count' as gay because they 'don't give'. That paragraph was explicitly about predatory dynamics and hidden motives. So either that comment or this one doesn't reflect what you actually think, because they can't both be true at the same time.

You know you could share a bed with someone, and nobody ever know?

So there are scenarios where how something looks to other people is irrelevant, because nobody knows but you. Some of what I am saying is written from this perspective. Talking about why an adult might not want to bedshare, even when there is nobody else to judge and/or they are certain of intention on both sides.

This isn’t the same comparison though is it.

your boyfriend sharing a bed with a ‘gay friend’ of many years is the comparison.

a) this poster. Slices that heterosexual people can be turned gay and
) that the friendship is predatory on the gay friends side, despite them never trying it on in the last.

those are the issues here.

your conversation has gone well with your friends. You boyfriend has outdated and slightly homophobic views and that could be problematic long term.

Of course I know that with nobody else around to see, someone could bed share and nobody would ever know, and that an individual might feel uncomfortable with that regardless of who's watching. I said as much explicitly, that individual preference is real, and that people can behave and feel however they want, whether there's an audience or not. That doesn't mean societal perceptions haven't shaped that feeling, but even if they hadn't in a given case, that was never my point, and I think you know that.

What I was actually responding to was the claim that no straight man would be okay sharing a bed with a gay friend, full stop. That's not a statement about private, unwitnessed choices, it's a claim about a near universal male reaction. And the reason for that reaction, when you actually dig into it, isn't 'privacy' or 'intimacy', it's the assumption that being near a gay man carries some inherent risk that needs managing. That assumption doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from decades of exactly the kind of thinking you're doing right now, gay men treated as a category to be wary of rather than individuals to actually know. That's what ingrained homophobia looks like , and pretending it isn't at play here is ignorant.

Also, you still haven't touched the fact that your other comment on this thread was explicitly about lesbian friends secretly scheming and crushing on their straight best friends. That paragraph was about exactly the predatory framing you're now claiming you weren't using.

@Ppppoppy - I agree. I’ve said up thread that l sometimes share a bed on a platonic basis with another close female friend, when other options (beds) are available. Sometimes it has been 2 friends.

For me, it is intimate, there is the pre sleep chat and giggles, warmth, the closeness, the comfort, feeling someone breathing and the (pleasant) smells; l offer a friendship bed.

Although it’s intimate it is not sexual and l think the 2 things can run on a parallel basis without one running into the other. Perhaps at times the word “intimate” is used because some consider it less risque than saying sexual.

Not what I'm saying at all is it. I'm actually questioning the sexuality of the 'straight' man. But you're quote makes no sense anyway if you replace straight man sleeping with straight female. Would you trust either as a partner in that situation

Yep, I know that's what you were saying. That was exactly what I was responding to.

You said 'NO straight man would ever be okay sharing a bed with a gay friend'. I said, well, actually some would, plenty of posters on here have said their own husbands would be totally fine with it. Then I made the wider point that a lot of straight men who wouldn't be comfortable with it aren't reacting that way for the reason someone else on this thread suggested, some kind of privacy or intimacy thing reserved for a partner. Rather it's very likely that for men it's ingrained homophobia. Sometimes that's the old 'gay men are predatory' idea, the assumption that just being near a gay man is somehow sexually charged, which is exactly the trope your comment relies on. Sometimes it's the fear of being seen as gay yourself just by association, which, congratulations, you've literally just done in this comment, there's actually a name for that particular flavour, homohysteria, basically men avoiding closeness with other men not because they're attracted to them but because they're anxious about what other people will assume if they aren't. That fear only exists because being thought gay carries stigma in the first place, so it's still homophobia underneath, just aimed sideways. And sometimes it's just a vague 'it might catch' vibe nobody wants to say out loud. Different flavours, same root.

And your comment, that a straight man sharing a bed with a gay friend must mean he's secretly gay, is a perfect example of exactly that. It's not a separate point to what I was making, it IS the point. You're saying a straight man can't just be comfortable around a gay mate without something going on underneath. That's the homophobic bit, not a clever counter to it. So genuine question, are all the husbands mentioned upthread who said they'd be fine with it secretly gay too, in your eyes?

On your straight man/straight woman swap, we've already established why those two scenarios aren't actually the same thing, different social assumptions, different attraction dynamics, not the same variables at all. But fine, since you're asking directly, yes, I would trust that with my own partner. If he had a proper longstanding female friend, that he insisted was purely platonic , someone specific he trusted, not just 'a woman' in the abstract, in the same specific circumstances op has with her friend . I'd take him at his word. I wouldn't be with someone I didn't trust to begin with, kind of the whole point of being with them. And even if I'd said no, that still wouldn't be the gotcha you think it is, because you can't use a comparison that isn't actually comparable to prove anything either way.