Many debates have captivated the public’s attention for centuries. What came first, the chicken or the egg? What happened before the Big Bang? Does God exist? There are so many mysteries in the world, but none of them have had quite the longevity of the controversial folk belief that regular fist fighting is the key to romantic bliss.

“People have been arguing about this for millennia,” says Dr. Chase Kudepoin of the Martial Romance Institute. “It’s one of those issues that no one has ever settled — until now. My team of researchers have spent the last several years investigating couples around the world, measuring both the level of violence and sexual satisfaction in their relationships. We’ve interviewed over fifty thousand couples across one hundred countries. This is the largest study of its kind, and the results are conclusive: couples that beat the shit out of each other regularly are more likely to experience deep sexual satisfaction. And that’s not all — they’re more likely to have healthy, happy children, and they’re less likely to get divorced. A lot of positive things are correlated with romantic fist fighting.”

Dr. Kudepoin does caution that romantic violence needs to be reciprocal in order for couples to benefit from it. “It turns out that egalitarian violence is a solid predictor of increased sexual satisfaction,” says Dr. Kudepoin. “The same isn’t true, however, if the violence is one sided. Those relationships tend to be short lived. The moral of the story is that if you want to benefit from domestic violence, you both have to engage in it in equal measures. Love that’s a boxing match between equals is good for the loins, while love that’s a one-sided beat down is not.”