Sociologists from across the world gathered in Montreal on Monday to tackle one of the planet’s most pressing issues: are fuck zones the new friend zone? Attendants at the world’s first Friend Zone Studies Conference spent the better part of the day attending debates and lectures on the science and pathos of the so-called friend zone, that platonic area of interpersonal relationships that denies people access to one another’s genital gifts.

“The last twenty years has seen a huge surge in the popularity of friend zone studies,” says Dr. Paul Pott. “Right now, tens of thousands of people around the world have dedicated their careers to untangling the mysteries of this sex starved region of our lives. We’re only just beginning to understand its social dynamics. Many of my colleagues think we’re looking at the issue in the wrong light. They claim that we’ve put the cart before the horse. According to them, the friend zone is the byproduct of the fuck zone.”

The fuck zone, according to Dr. Pott, is what happens when a man, woman, or post-binary other kin, pursues a relationship with another person with the sole purpose of fucking them. “If you fuck zone someone who isn’t interested in letting you touch their genitalia, their natural response would be to friend zone you,” says Dr. Pott. “There’s no friend zone without the fuck zone. The fuck zone always comes first.”

Many feminists say that the fact that the friend zone is a more popular concept than the fuck zone is the result of us living under a patriarchal society. “It’s natural that in a patriarchal society cis-male sexual interests would take precedent over female and post-binary other kin sexual interests,” says sexologist Rouge Lahaine. “In order to chip away at institutional patriarchy we must replace the idea of the friend zone with the idea of the fuck zone. Social justice demands it.”

Dr. Pott agrees. “The science isn’t settled, but I think it’s obvious that the fuck zone comes before the friend zone. It always has. It’s time for the public to recognize that fact.”