Trend Spurred By The Rise In Unwanted Advances
Students going overseas have now assumed a ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ approach. They now openly inquire about the sexual orientation of the room partner before fixing to share accommodations. This new consciousness to check the sexual orientation prior to fixing roommates is on the rise as the number of students facing ‘unwanted’ homosexual advances from the roommates abroad has kept mounting.
While homosexuality is still slowly coming out of closet in the city, in many remote corners of foreign lands it is openly accepted. Hence when students from Gujarat naively opt to stay with same sex room partners, their preferences are sometimes read in different connotations.
Sharvil Daima, an engineering student, was physically abused in the US by his gay roommate. Abducted and sexually tortured, Daima returned home suffering from a nervous breakdown. Daima was victimized because he was unaware of the sexual orientation of the room partner he chose to live with.
Kartik Shah, a consultant managing a networking portal which assists Indians in their search for a right roommate, said, “About two years back, when the trend of fixing room partners online was still new, Gujarati students’ major preferences were to stay with an Indian and getting accommodations located near their work or college area. Majority of the preferences were either to have a vegetarian or non-smoking partner. However, now, the new breed of cautious students clearly prefers to check on the sexual orientation of the person before fixing to share a room. Hence we have recently incorporated a new query of disclosing their sexual orientation in the form that users need to fill; although answering this query is not mandatory.”
