{{Short description|Form of flirtation}} {{Other uses|Footsie (disambiguation){{!}}Footsie}} thumb|Two people playing footsies '''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 prelude. 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.<ref name=OED>{{cite web|title=Footsie|url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/footsie|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130626022132/http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/Footsie|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 26, 2013|website=oxforddictionaries.com|accessdate=14 March 2015}}</ref>
==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.<ref name="Bordwall_The_Boston_Globe_April_15_2015c">{{cite web |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/07/11/daniel-wegner-harvard-social-psychologist-unraveled-mysteries-thought-and-memory/SATmfA8Vo07c5lezCPZFyH/story.html |title=Daniel M. Wegner, 65; Harvard social psychologist unraveled mysteries of thought and memory |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date= |author=Bryan Marquard |accessdate= April 15, 2015}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Bordwall_Scholar.harvard.edu_April_15_2015c">{{cite journal |url=http://scholar.harvard.edu/dwegner/publications/allure-secret-relationships |title=The allure of secret relationships |date= 1994 |vauthors=Wegner DM, Lane JD, Dimitri S |journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |accessdate= April 15, 2015 |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.66.2.287 |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=287–300|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
== In popular culture == American comics author Robert Crumb published an autobiographic comic strip named "Footsy" in 1987<ref>Lan Dong: ''Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives: Essays on Theory, Strategy and Practice'', McFarland & Company, 2012, p. 21 [https://books.google.com/books?id=5uPnDT38dMwC&q=robert+crumb+footsy%27%27&pg=PA21]</ref> 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".<ref>[http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,339112,00.html ''The Return of Robert Crumb''], Time, August 20, 2002</ref><ref>[http://www.leapingwindows.com/app/bkdtl?bId=3216 The Complete Crumb, Vol. 16]</ref>
==See also== *Public display of affection
==References== {{Commons category|Playing footsie|Footsie}} {{Reflist|25em}}
Category:Foot Category:Nonverbal communication Category:Sexual attraction Category:Foot fetishism