foot popping kiss

A trope seen in movies, TV, and other forms of visual media where a character (typically female, with some exceptions) raises one of their legs upon being kissed passionately. Though there are examples of this in advertisements prior, the rise of popularity of this trope may have been due to the The Motion Picture Production Code (1930-68). Two of the terms of the code (a.k.a. the Hays Code) were that a woman must have at least one foot on the ground during kissing scenes and that explicit sex could not be shown. Film historians look back on this gesture as either a euphemism for a boner or as a way of implying two characters had sex. Alternative theories state that it was used for actresses to show off their legs, or to show that a female character could trust her male romantic counterpart by his ability to hold her up. It is also popular in height difference ship art, as one character would be shorter than the other. Note: This is a trope, and is very unlikely to naturally happen in real life. Some people, on receiving their first kiss, may do this with ignorance of the gesture's fictional nature.