Olivia Cruisers? Carribean Sun Cruise October 30th

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by Medusa

Bulldog,

Respectfully, this is very frustrating to read. This issue is SO much bigger than a polar "Lesbian" versus "Non Lesbian" identity-centric struggle but it often seems to boil down to that with you. I'm trying to be super fair about remembering all of discussions that we have been involved in both together and peripherally where the discussion has felt very centered on you wanting your identity respected and not the actual issue that is being discussed. I get that this is a part of the discussion, the respect for identities and how booking cruises on Olivia cruiselines revolves around that, but it bothers me that you can not see the oppression that Blaze and his friends endured.

When you said that how Blaze was treated was "rude", I did a serious recoil. Not because I think you're a big, giant asshole (I don't) but because you would characterize what happened to Blaze as "rude" and not marginalizing, silencing. oppressive, sexist, or any other words that don't feel like "there, there, dear". Can you see that oppression? Can you see it when it happens to someone else?

Blaze wasn't treated "rudely". Blaze was thrown off of a paid vacation with a group of friends and left standing at the docks.
I would personally characterize that as dehumanizing. The really sad thing is that it was done by our own.

I dunno. Maybe Im getting too hung up on the verbiage. Im trying to think of how you might react if we booked a cruise on a cruiseline that had sent a message like "We have had Lesbians come on our vacation before but you will find that your presence is upsetting to our guests who are trying to have a Queer vacation" and then had someone give a personal narrative about how the Queer vacation group left them standing on the docks because they were "too Lesbian" and someone said "they were treated rudely".

I suspect that we might be having a conversation about Lesbians being excluded and how Lesbophobic that was.

Either way, good discussion all around.

No this is not about lesbian vs non-lesbian for me and that isn't what things boil down to for me often and that really ticks me off that you characterize me that way. That's a really strong and negative thing to say about me.

I wasn't minimizing Blaze and his friends experience at all. Sorry if rude was an inappropriate word choice.

People are saying very inaccurate things about lesbians and saying butches wouldn't be welcome on the cruise. I am a butch lesbian and my 30 years of experience does account for something.

Olivia is one of the oldest and most successful lesbian businesses ever. If people don't like who they target their business to that is their choice. I agree that cruises are going to be targeting the more affluent since they are the ones who can afford to go on cruises. I also said right off the bat that a lesbian cruise line would be an inappropriate venue for a butch femme gathering.