Don’t Flatter Yourself

Imagine this: It’s your freshman year of college, and you’re moving into your new dorm. You meet your roommate, and you’re hoping to hit it off, since this is the person you’re going to be living with. As you’re getting to know each other, you find out she’s a lesbian. What would you say to that?

It’s not something I would make a big deal of. At least that’s what is running through my head as my teacher tells us about an “incident” where a girl from our school was paired with a lesbian roommate. Our teacher says that if we ever find ourselves in a similar situation we should switch rooms. Based on my teachers advice, you would think that sharing a room with someone who is gay or lesbian is as bad as sharing a room with a murderer. As I’m rolling my eyes at my teacher’s ignorance, one of the boys obnoxiously says that he would want to switch rooms because he would be afraid of being raped. I assure him he would have nothing to worry about and told him not to flatter himself.

Being gay or lesbian is not equivalent to being a rapist. Whether someone rapes another person has nothing to do with his or her sexual orientation. And being attracted to people of the same sex does not mean people who are gay or lesbian want to get with everyone they see who’s the same sex. Saying a gay or lesbian person wants every person they see is like saying a heterosexual guy likes every girl he looks at.

So, if you’re heterosexual, don’t assume every gay or lesbian person is really into you, because chances are they’re not. If you find yourself paired with a gay roommate it’s likely they’re not going to make a big deal out of it, so you shouldn’t either.

—Kristen Choucrallah, 16, Staff Writer