Privacy is hard to come by in India. Life is a shared whirlpool of relatives, neighbors and friends. The city is crowded and prying eyes are everywhere.
Oyo is a popular hotel booking platform. The company is backed by luminaries in the venture capital world and has a reputation as a gateway to “love hotels” for unmarried couples. In its budget rooms, young lovers who might only be able to kiss secretly in the nooks and crannies of a park or shopping mall can work out their passions behind closed doors.
Now, Oyo is shedding its image as a hookup haven. This month, the company revised its policy guidelines to give some partner hotels the discretion to deny rooms to young couples unless they provide proof of marriage.
So far, the change only applies to Meerut, a mid-sized city northeast of New Delhi. The company said the new policy was a response to complaints from civil society and was developed “based on local social sentiment”.
Oyo’s move sparked heated debate online and sparked backlash on social media, especially among people in their 20s. For many, it brought home the tension between traditional values and modern ideals that defines the lives of millions of young Indians.
Premarital sex remains largely taboo in the deeply conservative country, where marriages are traditionally arranged by families. It was widely seen as a malicious import from the less repressive West, an affront to Indian culture, and was either policed or not recognized.
Chirodip Majumdar, an associate professor at Rabindra Mahavidyalaya College in the eastern state of West Bengal, said the stigma of premarital sex was a matter of “family honour”. Still, research shows that more and more young people are doing it.
Majumdar said attitudes towards premarital sex varied across classes, with people with higher incomes showing more positive attitudes towards it. “They have greater social interaction, more knowledge about the mechanics of birth control, more exposure to Western culture,” he said.
Many young Indians have also adopted liberal attitudes toward dating and sex that transcend caste, class and religion, which still often dictate arranged marriages.
Dating apps like Tinder are popular, as are hookup apps. A 2022 study published in the journal Sex & Culture found that 55% of young people in four Indian cities “had engaged in hookups, suggesting that norms around sexual behavior may be changing.”
Neha, a 34-year-old counselor in Bengaluru, said she rented an Oyo room twice a week when she and her husband were dating. Neha, who asked that her last name not be used, recalled how hotel owners, including those who did not use the Oyo platform, often cast judgmental glances on her.
In some hotels, owners ask people about their marital status before rejecting them.
But Oyo became such a central part of their romance that when the couple got married in 2017, their animated film wedding invitation included a reference to the hotel platform.
“Everyone knew we were using Oyo,” adds Neha, “so we put it on our wedding invitations.”
India’s lack of private space has created a market for companies like Oyo.
On Delhi’s hot summer days, it’s not uncommon for young lovers to secretly kiss in near-empty cinemas or under the arches of abandoned monuments. Bathroom stalls and fitting rooms are fair game. Internet cafes can become intimacy zones.
The critically acclaimed 2024 film Everything We Imagine Is Light explores the intersecting lives of three women in Mumbai, with one character finding a deserted forest to have sex with her boyfriend.
Manforce, which bills itself as India’s best-selling condom brand, launched a series of humorous ads last year in which couples used condoms in private corners of public places (cars, parks, movie theaters).
Oyo was founded in 2013 and is backed by investment firms such as SoftBank. It expanded into the United States in 2019 and acquired the Motel 6 chain last year.
In India, it offers rooms for as low as 500 rupees (or less than $6) a night, no questions asked. The platform is popular with small hotel owners who, after signing up with Oyo, are required to adhere to its standards and use its brand.
On Google, the first search question for Oyo is “Can I stay at Oyo with my girlfriend?” Although Oyo also caters to solo business travelers and other customers, the company still pays attention to its image, in ” Room search is provided under filter conditions such as “Relationship Mode”.
Now, however, it’s looking for more families.
In one ad released last year, a young couple sat at a dining table with the woman’s family. Their marital status is unclear. When she told her father that they had booked a weekend trip in Oyo, he looked at them in horror.
When the couple says it’s more fun to be with family, the father expresses confusion: “What are you talking about?” The next frame shows the family checking into a gleaming Oyo hotel. The father then said: “That’s what you said!”
Pragati Knowledge Base Contributed reporting.
