Sweet mother of Kobayashi, how did I miss this yesterday?!? I’m sorry you guys, I will give myself 48 lashes to the back tonight to repent for the 48 hours of ignorance I had to this very important story.

SCIENTISTS FIGURED OUT THE POINT OF SEX, EVERYONE! Finally!!! According to Gawker, scientists have long wondered why our species decided to procreate in pairs, as opposed to passing genetic material on other ways like cloning or asexual reproduction. Turns out, it’s not just about how fun getting down in the sack is, but also that it keeps our bodies safe from infection:

But experts at the University of Indiana may have provided the best evidence yet after engineering two types of worms, some which could only reproduce by mating with each other and some could only clone themselves.

After exposing them to a harmful bacteria, worms that reproduced through sex survived fairly well while those that were asexual died rapidly.

Co-author Curtis Lively said: “The Red Queen Hypothesis predicts that sex should allow hosts to evade infection from their parasites, whereas self-fertilisation may increase the risk of infection. The coevolutionary struggle between hosts and their parasites could explain the existence of males.”

So what they’re saying is,  not only did evolution particularly depend on humans having sexy parties, but men might be an afterthought to keep us females healthier? I approve of this study.