The Psychosexual Weirdness of Playground Rhymes

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Not-So-Nice

Remember that old rhyme? “Boys are rotten, made out of cotton. Girls are sexy, made out of Pepsi.” Or the more traditional version, “Boys are made of slime and snails and puppy dogs’ tails. Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.” As kids, we sang them without thinking. It was just something everyone did. A game. A chant. Something you shouted while skipping rope or swinging upside-down on the monkey bars.

But looking back, I can’t help but think… wait, what? Sexy? Made of Pepsi? Good enough to eat? These rhymes might sound cute on the surface, but once you peel back that sugary layer, there’s something deeply unsettling going on. These weren’t just silly songs. They were shaping how we saw ourselves and each other before we even knew what any of it meant.

We were just children. Singing about sexiness. About being edible. About boys being gross and girls being delightful. It sounds harmless, but it isn’t. It quietly planted ideas about gender, attraction, and desirability into our tiny little brains, and no one really stopped to ask if that was okay. Spoiler: it’s not.

Made of Cotton, Slime, and Subtext

These rhymes weren’t just playful nonsense. They were tiny scripts handed to us like lunchbox-sized propaganda. Boys were trouble, a bit dirty, rough and tumble. Girls were sweet, soft, polite, made to be admired. And when you dig into it a little deeper, there’s this bizarre undercurrent of adult themes simmering beneath the sing-songy surface.

“Girls are sexy, made out of Pepsi”. That one still makes me squirm. I remember being maybe eight years old, chanting that while playing elastics with a group of classmates. None of us had the faintest clue what sexy meant. But we said it anyway, laughing like it was just another word. That rhyme taught us that femininity was meant to be consumed. Tasted. Craved. Something fizzy and sweet and made for someone else.

And the boys? They were the ones doing the consuming. They were gross, sure, but also funny, brave, adventurous. Naughty in a cheeky way. Their chaos was forgiven because it was expected. Meanwhile, we were taught to be delightful. Digestible. It was baked into everything, even the rhymes we sang while skipping.

Catch, Kiss, and Confused Consent

Can we talk about catch and kiss? Because honestly, what the actual fuckery of a fruit salad? A whole playground game where one group chases the other, catches them, and then gives them a kiss. In what world is this normal? Oh right, our world. The world that trains girls to run and boys to chase. That tells boys their desire is funny and natural, and girls their resistance is just part of the game.

I remember playing it when I was six, at a strict little Catholic school where the playground was all bark chips and rosary beads for breakfast. I remember being caught and kissed by a boy named Robert. And then, even though I was standing on the sidelines trying to stay “out of action”, he ran right back up and smooched me again. Twice. No boundaries, just cheeky persistence, and everyone thought it was funny.

And then there was Kyle, with his bright orange hair and even brighter opinions. He kept insisting the girls should be the chasers instead. I was having none of it. I slapped him for being sexist. Right there on the playground. And weirdly, I didn’t get in trouble. Maybe even the nuns respected a bit of sass.

I suppose my feminism and passion for justice started early. Even then, I could feel something was off. The rules were different for boys and girls, and I wasn’t having it. But still, the game went on. And so did we, learning the scripts without even realising we were being handed them. Teaching boys that pursuit was power, and girls that boundaries were bendable. And no one batted an eye because it was tradition. A game. All fun and giggles, right?

Whispered Lessons and Unspoken Rules

The thing about playground culture is that it’s where so many of our early beliefs take root. It wasn’t school or TV that taught me what it meant to be a girl. It was the playground. The whispered dares. The playground politics. The unsupervised songs and games that were passed down like folklore from the older kids. They were messy and strange and deeply coded in the culture of gender.

Girls got points for being pretty. For being skinny and having their hair in plaits or ponytails. For being polite but not too quiet. Boys got points for being funny. For pulling pranks. For calling you names then pretending they didn’t like you. For playing a mean game of handball. And we were all just meant to know the rules. If a boy pushed you, it meant he liked you. If a girl said no, it was part of the game.

And those weird little rhymes? They cemented the script. They wrapped all that gender training up in a catchy melody and made sure we remembered it. Sang it. Repeated it. Became it.

Sexy Pepsi and Edible Girls

Let’s come back to the Pepsi line. Because I think about it a lot. Who even came up with that? Were they alright? Did they need therapy? Because who looks at a group of primary school children and thinks, “You know what would be cute? If we described little girls as sexy, carbonated snacks.”

That line says so much. It says that our value is in our sweetness, our desirability, our marketability. It links femininity with branding. With consumerism. With being sparkly and delicious and refreshing. And it does all of that before we’ve even hit puberty. That’s not harmless. That’s psychological grooming masquerading as a rhyme.

We didn’t question it back then. We thought it was funny. Silly. But it stuck. It became part of the way we understood ourselves. The way we giggled when someone called us cute. The way we felt shame if we weren’t pretty enough. I didn’t care that I was top of my class in science, or that I made it to districts for the 200m sprint. I did care however that I wasn’t skinny and pretty, and that my short brown bob wasn’t girly enough. These rhymes weren’t just nonsense. They were blueprints. Tiny, rhyming blueprints for how to perform gender in a way the world would approve of.

Breaking the Rhymes, Rewriting the Rules

So what do we do with all this? We can’t go back in time and change the songs we sang. But we can unpick them. We can examine them with fresh eyes and say, actually, that was a bit weird. We can start noticing where those lessons still show up in our lives. In our relationships. In our expectations of ourselves.

We can talk about it. Laugh about it. Let ourselves feel the weirdness. Because laughing at the absurdity is healing, too. Healing doesn’t have to be beige and quiet. Sometimes it’s loud and strange and full of awkward childhood memories you suddenly realise were a little bit unhinged.

And most importantly, we can rewrite the script. We can raise the next generation with better rhymes. Rhymes that celebrate consent, kindness, authenticity, and joy. Not fizzy femininity or slimy masculinity. Just kids being kids, free from the weight of being good enough to eat or wild enough to chase.

We Were Just Kids

At the end of the day, we were just little kids. Singing songs, playing games, trying to make sense of the world with what we were given. It’s not our fault those rhymes were weird. It’s not our fault the games blurred boundaries. But it is our responsibility to recognise it now. To unpack it. To make space for the uncomfortable bits.

You might be thinking I’m reading too much into it. That it’s just silly rhymes and playground nonsense. But those rhymes didn’t vanish when the bell rang. They followed us home. They followed us into adulthood. They shaped how we saw ourselves before we even had the words to describe what we were feeling.

Because healing isn’t just about lighting candles and sipping herbal tea. Sometimes it’s about remembering the nonsense we sang on the playground and going, “Wait, that was kind of messed up.” And then letting that realisation soften something in us. Letting it make space for something better.

So here’s to the chaos of childhood. To the awkwardness. The rhymes. The rules we never agreed to but followed anyway. And here’s to breaking them. Rewriting them. And maybe, just maybe, finally letting ourselves be more than a rhyme someone else wrote for us.

You Are Not Entitled to an Answer – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In this episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why you are not entitled to an answer. Specifically, we're talking about the strange little corner of modern dating where a few days of app chat somehow becomes an emotional contract, and suddenly a man you've never met believes your silence requires a formal explanation, a debrief, and possibly a follow-up meeting with management.I have two stories for you. One man who talked almost exclusively about himself, ignored the fact that I was sick, and then followed up a week later asking whether I'd reconsidered his "request for clarification". And another who became offended because I didn't respond to his selfie within two hours while I was lying in a dark room with a migraine. Sir. Please be serious.Because here's the thing. Before you've met someone, you do not owe them unlimited access to your time, attention, reassurance, or emotional labour. You don't have to justify why the vibes changed. You don't need a reason they'll consider reasonable. You are allowed to disengage because something felt off, because you changed your mind, because you met someone else, or because you're in your luteal phase and frankly the entire world can wait.Today we're talking about the difference between ghosting and simply disengaging, why demanding closure can become a boundary violation, the exhausting expectation that women should manage men's feelings for them, and why you do not need to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or explain, when you've already decided you're done. Let's get into it.Key Takeaways:A few days of chatting does not create a debt. Matching on an app, exchanging messages, or talking on the phone does not give someone a claim on your attention. Until you've actually built a connection, you are allowed to walk away without submitting supporting documentation.Closure is not something another person can demand from you. Asking once is one thing. Continuing to push after someone has clearly disengaged is not persistence or emotional maturity. It's refusing to accept the answer you've already been given.You do not need to JADE. You don't have to justify, argue, defend, or explain why you're no longer interested. The reason doesn't have to be good enough for him. It just has to be yours.Pre-date silence and post-date silence are not the same thing. If you've never met, disengaging is part of app dating. Once you've shared an actual date or developed a genuine connection, a simple goodbye becomes basic courtesy. Nobody needs a dissertation, but acknowledging another human being matters.Sometimes they don't miss you. They miss the audience. Someone can seem interested while actually being interested in having your attention. Real connection requires curiosity about you. If the only time they become deeply engaged is when you're leaving, pay attention to that.For more visit ⁠BryJaimea.com⁠ or follow over on IG ⁠@BryJaimea

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