I love sex. I think it’s totally awesome and empowering for consenting, of-age guys and gals to do it as often as they like, with whomever they like as long as they’re being safe.
I’m a pretty traditional broad when it comes to sex, though: I’m 24, and have only slept with two guys, both of whom I was seeing exclusively. I blame my religious upbringing for my slightly prudish ways, and to this day, I am still pretty picky about who I let down there, but I have good reason for doing so.
Guy number two on my list of sexual conquests happened to have human papillomavirus. For those of you who don’t know, human papillomavirus (HPV), according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI). There are more than 40 types of HPV that can infect the genitals, mouths, and throats of both males and females.
The CDC says that nearly all sexually active men and women will get HPV at some point in their lives, even if they’ve only had sex with one person. If you’re anything like me, your reaction to this is something along the lines of “holy shit.”
It’s shocking to me that an STI as pervasive as this one still seems to be flying under the radar. I’m not saying people haven’t heard of HPV or don’t know what it is, in a vague sense, but people don’t talk about it. At all.
HPV, like most other big, bad, scary STIs, comes with its share of physical consequences. But — perhaps even more damaging — it comes with a hell of a lot of stigma.
I got lucky with my HPV encounter, as the guy in question turned out to be a pretty decent human who saw fit to alert me of his status before we slept together. However, we’d been fooling around for six months and I could’ve easily been exposed to the virus. I took the proper steps and got tested and was fortunately all right.
But the whole thing got me thinking about how fucked up the lines of communication are in a situation involving something like HPV. The guy wanted to tell me sooner but didn’t want to be presumptuous or scare me off, and the more I thought about his “excuse,” the more it made sense. It’s a tough, awkward, shitty thing to tell a prospective sexual partner that you have HPV – kind of kills the seductive vibe, you know?
The fact is that HPV is a transmissible virus, but transmission rates, infection rates, and the ability of an immune system to fight off the virus vary from person to person. So, my guy might have told himself that because we weren’t engaging in especially high-risk behaviours, I didn’t need to know. It’s really a question of timing. But, at the end of the day, it’s my body, my cervix, my cancer risk, and I had the right to know before the relationship ever got physical.
The terrible thing here is the fear, so here’s what I really think: let’s all just say “no” to the fear. Statistically, almost every sexually active adult has encountered HPV, so we should be adopting a“we’re-all-in-this-together” mentality.
Let’s just say “fuck you” to the self-imposed shame, and be honest with our sex partners. And if someone you want to get jiggy with is good enough to inform you of their STI status, reward their bravery and honesty with some protected sex or at the very least, a whole lot of respect. Knowledge is power, people.
