Footsies (also footsy or footsie) is a flirting game where two people touch feet under a table or otherwise concealed place, often as a romantic Foreplay. It is a game played either as an act of flirtatious body language, or simply for enjoyment. Although footsies is not inherently romantic, the nature of it as playful touching is often done between romantic partners as a sign of affection, and most often without discussion. The term comes from a 1940s humorous diminutive of foot.
Effects
In a 1994 study on secret relationships, participants (college students from the US) played a partnered card game in which a subset were instructed to play footsies with their card playing partner.
Of these, individuals whose footsies was kept a secret rated the attractiveness of their partner significantly higher than either those who did not play footsies, or those whose footsies was publicly known.
In popular culture
American
comics author Robert Crumb published an autobiographic
comic strip named "Footsy" in 1987
[Lan Dong: Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives: Essays on Theory, Strategy and Practice, McFarland & Company, 2012, p. 21 [1]] which deals with "his teenager encounters with the feet of various lusty creatures at school" and is a "typically self-lacerating portrayal of one of Crumb's myriad sexual fetishes".
[ The Return of Robert Crumb, Time, August 20, 2002][ The Complete Crumb, Vol. 16]
See also
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Public display of affection
