Knee-tremblingly

[George Thompson]

The header to a message from a college theater:
Coming up: Knee-tremblingly sexy, beautiful and moving. (The Guardian, UK) See Australia's CIRCA this weekend only

Jonathon G's Dictionary of Slang has Knee-trembler = copulation performed while standing.  (This was my first reaction.)
OED lacks an entry, but has a quotation under "mogully": 2000    Evening Standard (Nexis) 17 Mar. 89   Below you plummets The Wall, a mogully black run certain to induce knee-trembling.
HDAS has no entry.

This is announcing tickets for a troup of acrobats &c who have, it seems, a particularly break-neck act.  There is a traditional image of fear inducing the legs to weaken so that the knees knock together, as for instance, this from Dr. Joyce Brothers: "Whenever surveys are made of what people fear the most, it's a sure bet that public speaking will be at or near the top of the list. Even the most confident, experienced and high-ranking among us often have their knees knocking behind the podium." If you prefer Shakespeare to Brothers, there is Hamlet, after he gets the word from the ghost of his father:: "Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up."

So, I suppose that the Guardian's idea is, that the sight of the performers leaping about will put the audience in fear.  Is the association of trembling knees so far better established that only one of a very dirty mind would think of fornication?  Or was the Guardian being naughty, since the performers are young and attractive, and their show carries an erotic charge?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.  Working on a new edition, though.

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