I work in an office that shares a restroom with two other departments, so there is quite a bit of traffic past my desk which, sadly, is right next to the bathroom in question. I have noticed something over the year or so I've been at this job: Carefully Placed Pubes. On the toilet seat, on the toilet tank, on the edge of the sink. We all have loose pubes (at least those of us who let 'em grow) and on occasion we may leave one behind when using the toilet. However, over the year I've noted that these pubes seem "placed" or "staged." Is this A Thing? I can imagine someone getting a thrill from the idea of an unsuspecting someone sitting their naked nethers on a carefully placed pube. How intimate!

But also... it grosses me out. I mean, shared bathrooms just generally gross me out. But this goes into another level of ew. It feels like I'm being involved, non-consensually, in a sex act. Is this an over reaction? I am super sex-positive and really anti-shaming, but... does this cross a line? I mean, I am coming into contact with someone's bodily effluvium without consent.

You have covered ALL the kinks. Or perhaps not? I searched your archives and couldn't find one about Pube Contact. I'm curious to know if you have ever heard of this particular proclivity.

Pretty Upset By Erratic Strays

Everywhere you go, every doorknob you grip, every faucet you open, every seat—toilet or otherwise—you gently set your ass down on, PUBES, you come in contact with bodily effluvium. That shit is literally everywhere, PUBES, and some of that shit is literally shit. (Effluvium means "unpleasant or harmful odor, secretion, or discharge," so pubes and skin cells and toenail clippings, etc., while they may be ick, aren't technically effluvium. But I'll allow this usage.) No one has the right—ahem—to expose others to excessive and/or unexpected deposits of their effluvium*, broadly defined. But when you leave your home in the morning, PUBES, it is inevitable that you will come into contact with trace amounts of the bodily effluvium, broadly defined, of others. On the subway, at the office, in restaurants, in public restrooms, etc. Since this kind of contact can't be avoided, your consent falls somewhere between irrelevant and implicit.

Backing up: I get a lot of letters, PUBES, but yours is the first "carefully placed pubes" (CPP) inquiry to violate the safe space that isn't my inbox. As someone who's squeamish about certain kinds of human hair—facial, nose, and "the terminal hair arising from folliculary cartilage inside the external auditory meatus in humans"—I can certainly appreciate why finding strange pubes on a toilet seat would annoy someone. But the seat of a public toilet is a reasonable place to encounter stray/strange public hairs, as you acknowledge. What irks you, PUBES, is the thought that someone in your office is deliberately leaving their pubes in spots where a reasonable person might reasonably expect to encounter stray/strange pubes and deriving illicit thrills from this activity. While I haven't addressed this particular activity, PUBES, my thoughts on Secret Perving are relevant...

My go-to example of permissible Secret Perving is the foot fetishist who works in a high-end shoe store. He really loves his job, he gets to look at feet all day long, and he moves a lot of shoes. So long as the shoe store salesclerk with a foot fetish is good at his job and so long as his secret perving is undetectable—no spotting, no bulges, no heavy breathing, no creepy compliments—there's no harm. If the foot fetishist/shoe salesclerk goes home at the end of a long day and jacks off about the feet he saw and, yes, handled during his shift—and the people he sold shoes to are none the wiser—he's not hurting anyone. The secret pleasure he takes in his work shouldn't disqualify him from being a shoe salesclerk.

If someone in your office gets off on leaving his or her (ha ha ha: his) pubes in places where stray/strange pubes aren't out of place and gets off on the thought of it without alarming or harming anyone, CPP could be filed under permissible Secret Perving. But if the placement of his or her (HA HA HA: HIS) pubes is so obvious that the perving is no longer secret, then we have to file CPP, as practiced by this particular CPPer, under Not Okay:

Important note: it's not just about how the foot fetishist/secret perv/shoe salesclerk/aspiring podiatrist perceives himself, but how he is perceived by others—by his customers and his coworkers. He may think he's playing it cool, he may think his perving is secret, but if his customers are creeped out by his behavior, demeanor, bulges, spots, heavy breathing, etc., or his coworkers are creeped out by him, then his perving isn't a secret and he should be fired and/or go into another line of work.

So, PUBES, if there actually is a perv with perverted intent behind the carefully placed pubes you're finding on toilet seats, toilet tanks, and sinks—all reasonable places to find pubes in a public restroom (the sink is a stretch, I'll grant you, but I can game out a scenario where that could happen**)—and you've noticed because the placement of the pubes is just so, the perving isn't secret and it's not okay and, um, yeah. So. I'm not sure what you can do about it, PUBES, unless your company's HR department is willing to gather up the suspect pubes and subject your coworkers to DNA testing.

There's another, more realistic possibility here, PUBES: You're reading way, waaaaay to much into those stray pubes. Human beings have a tendency to see patterns where none exist and also to attribute intent to random events and/or coincidences. Ask yourself which is likelier, PUBES: There's a pervert in your office who stages stray pubes like a real estate agent stages swank condos... or you can regularly find pubes on pretty much every surface in that toilet where one would expect to find pubes because people shed pubes and pubes have a way of getting places when people drop their pants and/or lift their skirts. Confirmation bias could also be a factor. (Pubes in any of the three places you've convinced yourself the CPP kinkster leaves pubes? Evidence that confirms your suspicions. Pubes anywhere else? Random pubes. But it's just as likely that all the pubes are random pubes—it's just that some random pubes randomly land in those three spots.)

If you were finding pubes on keyboards, office birthday cakes, and arranged on the bathroom mirrors to spell out REDRUM, the odds jump that you have a pervert (or worse) in your office.

But let's say you do have a CPP perv on the loose. Again, there's not a lot that can be done about it, PUBES, so if you find sharing an office with a CPP perv unpleasant to contemplate, well, don't contemplate it. If you find it difficult not to contemplate it, PUBES, you could contemplate this far more disturbing (AND NOT OKAY AT ALL) example of secret perving instead: I got a letter at "Savage Love" a long, long time ago from a guy who confessed to/boasted about how he would go to the bathroom during parties, have a quick wank, and then leave a little bit of his semen on his hosts' toothbrushes. I don't know about you, PUBES, but I'd much rather have a CPPer in my office than a TBDer (toothbrush defiler) in my home. So, like, perspective and stuff.

UPDATE: Commenter Semi-Crepuscular has a better memory than I do—he cites a similar question that I answered in a column back in October, 2005. I came to the opposite conclusion then—I did think there was a CPP on the loose—and concluded by citing the exact same toothbrush story!

* Gold star to the first person who posts a comment that thing I wrote.

** Pube gets on hand when tucking junk back into panties/skivvies; wind drag as hands are lifted over sink to wash dislodges pube; pube floats down and lands on edge of sink.