Pastor Lands in Hot Water for Saying Men and Women Can't Be 'Just Friends'
Hans Fiene, a Lutheran pastor from Illinois, is now the center of a heated debate online after he suggested in an op-ed Tuesday that heterosexual men and women cannot be "just friends."
In the op-ed published in The Federalist, Fiene opens with a lament about America's falling fertility rate. He then attributes this in part to people waiting longer to get married and men being "trapped in the Friend Zone" by women.
"Every year, countless young men find themselves trapped in the Friend Zone, a prison where women place any man they deem worthy of their time but not their hearts, men they'd love to have dinner with but, for whatever reason, don't want to kiss goodnight," he wrote.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"Being caught in the Friend Zone is an inarguable drag on fertility rates, as a man who spends several years pledging his heart to a woman who will never have his children is also a man who most likely won't procreate with anyone else during that time of incarceration," he argued. "Free him to find a woman who actually wants to marry him, however, and he'll have several more years to sire children who will laugh, create, sing, fill the world with love and, most importantly, pay into Social Security."
He then went on to further qualify the male "friend" of women as "someone you deliberately choose to spend one-on-one time with."
"Quite simply, for the sake of our future, the Friend Zone must be destroyed. For the Friend Zone to be destroyed, women must accept the following truths: you don't have any guy friends and, in fact, you can't have any guy friends," he said.
Fiene's op-ed did not go unnoticed and it has drawn some sharp criticism online since it was published.
"If you're going to publish a piece about why men and women can't be friends, hire a writer who's had a friend before," Eve Peyser, staff politics writer at Vice.com, noted in a blistering tweet along with an excerpt from the op-ed.
In a tweet promoting the op-ed, Fiene said he was presenting "Economic proof that men and women can't be just friends."
Inez Stepman, a fellow writer at The Federalist, was one of the first to challenge his argument.
"Can't agree, Hans. You've written general truths, but there ARE exceptions. I have a guy bestie (he is also married & spouses get along)," she wrote.
"Of course there are exceptions. But the problem is as soon as you concede that, everyone think they're exempt and the problem doesn't end!" Fiene replied.
Marine biologist Liana Brooks told the pastor: "There is no Friend Zone. Women don't owe you sex for existing, and many women will not want you. Accept this. If you're worried about natal rates you need to fix the system that punishes women for pregnancy in a country trying to erase prenatal care."
David Harsanyi, a senior editor at the Federalist who said he is an atheist, attempted to defend Fiene by posting a 2012 article from Scientific American he said is in line with the writer's reason.
"Hard to believe people are so mad at @HansFiene. This, from Scientific American: Men & Women Can't Be 'Just Friends,'" he wrote.
The article was based on a study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, which suggested that while heterosexual people of the opposite sex are capable of being "just friends," romantic attraction between the two was also common.
"Our findings offer preliminary support for the proposal that men's and women's experiences in cross-sex friendship reflect their evolved mating strategies. Attraction between cross-sex friends is common, and it is perceived more often as a burden than as a benefit. We hope that other close relationships researchers will pursue focused research on precursors and consequences of attraction between friends over the life course," the researchers said.
The Scientific American report concluded: "So, can men and women be 'just friends?' If we all thought like women, almost certainly. But if we all thought like men, we'd probably be facing a serious overpopulation crisis."
Critics were quick to point out to Harsanyi that while the headline on Fiene's op-ed and the headline in the Scientific American article are similar, the study does not support his argument that men and women cannot be "just friends."
