Rock, Paper, Scissors — sex?
Whether duking it out over who gets to ride the slide first on the playground or who gets the last slice of pizza on date night, the time-honored hand game of chance has always come in handy when making some of everyday life’s most difficult decisions.
Heck, it’s even helped bikini-clad bombshells wiggle out of legal binds with the police, and served as the sport of choice in friendly wagers totaling more than $500,000.
However, the seemingly innocent battle of the brains between a pair of competitors — which typically sees each challenger flash either a closed fist as “Rock,” a flat hand as “Paper” or their index and middle fingers as “Scissors” in a best two-out-three match — is said to have begun as a form of foreplay in sex houses.
Childhood destroyed!
“So, ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ started as a sex game,” UK-based historian and podcaster Katie Charlwood revealed to her shocked TikTok audience of more than 354,000.
“Technically, it originally started out as a Sansukimi-Ken, which was a Chinese drinking game,” she continued. “But when the game traveled through Japan in the 17th and 18th centuries, it became incredibly popular in brothels.”
And she’s not jerking around.
The 1998 book “The Culture of Japan as Seen through Its Leisure” by noted educators Sepp Linhart and Sabine Fruhstuck — which Charlwood cites as one of her sources in the viral video — first revealed that Rock, Paper, Scissors (known as “jankenpon” or “jan-ken” in Japan) has NSFW roots in Asian culture.
“[It] was in existence in the Edo period from at least 1700 onward and served as an innocent drinking game or as a kind of foreplay in the amusement quarters,” the writers reported, adding that the game eventually gained popularity outside of brothels as adults began playing it around the house and with their kids.
“It played an enormous role in the leisure life of Japanese adults and in the world of children’s play for at least 250 years, but it underwent a very significant change when it turned from … exotic to ordinary,” the book reads.
Even more erotically eye-popping, Charlwood also exposed the shocking significance of “Scissors” in the face-off during its dirty dawning — suggesting that the hand gesture had more to do with the cutting away of clothes rather than a steamy sexual position.
“One variation of the game had players remove an item of clothing every time they lost a round,” she alleged. “Effectively making it ‘strip’ Rock, Paper, Scissors.”
Her revelations left longtime fans of the goofy gamble startled — but not speechless.
“I’ll never tell my kids to sort out their problems with a game of rock paper scissors again without thinking of this,” commented one stupefied mom.
“All my life I thought it was an innocent way to settle a disagreement,” another chimed in.
“This is amazing,” said one surprised spectator, which prompted Charlwood to respond: “The age old skill of humans to create a game and then find a way to make it naughty.”
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