Playing footsie

Footsie (footsy, or footsies) 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 footsie is not inherently romantic, the nature of it as playful touching is often done between young lovers as a sign of affection, and most often without discussion. The term comes from a 1940s humorous diminutive of foot.

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 footsie with their card playing partner. Of these, individuals whose footsie was kept a secret rated the attractiveness of their partner significantly higher than either those who did not play footsie, or those whose footsie was publicly known.

Playing footsie is no sexual molestation according to a decision of the Supreme Court of Cassation in Italy in 2000.

American comics author Robert Crumb published an autobiographic comic strip named "Footsy" in 1987 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". In training of the plantar fascia a device called footsie roller is used for the foot.

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