How to have sex with HPV
HPV can carry a low or a high cancer risk. With a sex therapist, we look at sex with HPV, its types and symptoms, and prevention.
How to have sex with HPV
Under the Purpuroscope: HPV, a tricky one!
What's important to know: HPV can carry a low or a high cancer risk. We break it down together with a sex therapist.
Sources and main fact-checks:
cancer.org
cdc.gov
HPV, or human papillomavirus, is so common that most of your lovers have most likely already been infected with it.*
*Purpur recalls the great episode of Girls, "All Adventurous Women Do".
So there's no point in giving up sex just because of a positive HPV test. But you should definitely tell your partners that you have HPV.
According to CDC statistics, 75% of sexually active people worldwide may be infected with HPV. Most of them will never know about it.
Sex with HPV
Without a regular partner
Use protection during any kind of sex (oral, vaginal, anal): condoms and dental dams. Even though they don't protect against HPV 100%, they still lower the risk of infection.
With a regular partner
Your partner most likely already has your strain of the virus, so you can keep having sex as usual.
Types of HPV
HPV comes in dozens of different types, with either a low or a high cancer risk.
The vast majority of HPV strains (low risk) clear up on their own: in six months or a couple of years, your tests won't show it anymore. So you can wait for your immune system to do its job and get regular swabs from the cervical canal or the urethra.
Symptoms
HPV can be asymptomatic, but some strains can cause genital warts. Either you don't need to do anything about them (they'll go away on their own), or they can be removed by a doctor.
Keep an eye on yourself and your partner, and tell each other about warts if you have them. And if you're undergoing treatment, hold off on sex.
So why do people talk about HPV at all?
High-risk HPV is one of the main causes of cancers of the cervix, anus, vulva, vagina, penis and oropharynx. Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women.
Statistically, HPV is "to blame" for 90% of cervical and anal cancers, 70% of vaginal and vulvar cancers, and 60% of penile cancers.
HPV prevention
1. Annual screening (a swab from the cervical canal and the urethra)
2. A WHO-approved vaccine. It gives the most protection to people aged 9 and up who haven't become sexually active yet (the older a person is, the lower the effect). The vaccine is recommended for everyone, regardless of sex, up to age 26 (after 26, it's optional).
