00:07We are just going to be friends, okay?
00:10Great! Friends. It's the best thing.
00:13This is what I've been talking about. Look, look.
00:15What I'm saying is, and this is not a come on in any way, shape, or form,
00:19is that men and women can't be friends.
00:22The sex part always gets in the way.
00:24What?
00:25That's not true.
00:26Whew, keep watching. It gets worse.
00:28I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
00:32No, you don't.
00:33Yes, I do.
00:34Yes, I do.
00:35You think you do.
00:36I can't deal with this. It's the 21st century. Time to drop some knowledge.
00:44No man can be friends with a woman he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
00:49So you're saying a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
00:53No, you pretty much want to nail them, too.
00:56No!
00:57Hi!
00:58What was that?
01:09So you're from the future.
01:11Look, your movie, it was just too sexist and I couldn't let it lie.
01:15I still can't get over this. I'm delusional. I'm dreaming.
01:18Guys, guys. Jackie's just deeply offended by your wholesale condemnation of cross-sex friendships.
01:25You know what? I am, too. It's just another manifestation of the old toxic narrative of our patriarchal, heteronormative, monogamy
01:34-obsessed culture of compulsory sexuality.
01:38What is that supposed to mean?
01:40Really? Didn't you just graduate college at the beginning of this movie?
01:45I think it's best that we start by defining what friendship really is.
01:51Friendship is a voluntary, cooperative relationship with varying degrees of intimacy, affection, and mutual assistance.
01:58It's a beautiful thing.
02:00So Harry, why is friendship so fragile that it can't withstand little sexual tension?
02:07It's just too awkward.
02:09It's just too awkward?
02:11You want to know why it's too awkward?
02:13Western culture has a history of creating separate spheres for men and women.
02:17But at the turn of the 20th century, all of that started to change.
02:20The terms boyfriend and girlfriend entered the American lexicon.
02:24First as names for just like plain old friends and then as names for significant others.
02:30Huh. I had no idea.
02:33And things have gotten even more mixed since women entered higher education and the workforce.
02:38See? We've come a long way, haven't we? You're single, you're making strides.
02:42Well since the 80s, unmarried people have comprised a larger and larger chunk of the US population.
02:48They make meaning outside of long-term monogamous relationships.
02:52Yeah, and public expressions of sex and gender are more diverse than ever.
02:56Like, you can't safely assume what someone's deal is.
02:59Harry, what if some of the women that you fancy are asexual?
03:05What do you mean, like frigid?
03:07What if they're gay?
03:08Oh, I know.
03:11What if your desire to bone them is something that they're willing to talk through with you in order to
03:15preserve your friendship, you sad, horny bastard?
03:19Oh, well when you put it like that.
03:20You're reinforcing the idea that sexual tension irrevocably destroys a relationship.
03:25As if men and women can't interact in any other way than to bone and have babies.
03:31When we talk about platonic cross-sex relationships, we've allowed one type of narrative to take over.
03:38Hot babe plus hot dude equals baby.
03:43So will they or won't they? And of course they do, how could they not?
03:47Totally obsessed with finding the one, locking that down, and living in monogamous bliss forever and ever, amen.
03:53Never mind that climbing divorce rate.
03:56It's all a fantasy based on the theory that us femmes want to take a smoking hot patriarchal dick at
04:01any hour of the day.
04:02And that's what we mean when we say compulsory sexuality.
04:06This idea that it's DTF or die.
04:09It doesn't benefit anyone's self-confidence.
04:11It doesn't make sex any better.
04:13And it devalues the platonic relationships in our lives.
04:17Cross-sex friendships are a nascent cultural phenomenon.
04:20We have to give them room to grow.
04:22I agree.
04:23And you're saying what's working against this are narratives like the ones expressed in our movie?
04:28Oh, jeez.
04:29Yeah, it ushered in a geyser of romantic comedies in the 90s that continue to ruin my life to this
04:34day.
04:35Well, I don't want to be here.
04:37How do I get out of this?
04:38Do you want to come back to 2016?
04:40What?
04:43Tonight on, The Bachelor.
04:46Stacy stabs Joey in the face.
04:48Oh boy, it's gonna be a blood bath.
04:50Boobs, roses, and diamond rings.
04:52Get that rose, girl.
