As far as I understand, through a couple calls to a health line and some web info, HPV is the virus that causes genital warts. My GF tells me that she carries the virus but has no symptoms. However, I understand that she could develop warts on her cervix at any time, and we wouldn’t know until a biannual pap smear. She assures me that 50 per cent of women have the virus, and that the only way it would develop into full-blown warts is if she came into contact with another carrier. She also thinks it may go away by itself, which we both know is untrue as there is no cure.
What’s a boyfriend of two months to do? I’m pretty sure I don’t have warts but I understand there is no blood test for it. And it sounds like I won’t know about it until it’s too late. I do really like this girl, I just can’t stop thinking that eventually she’s going to give me genital warts, which to me is a no-brainer—I should end this relationship. I’m an asshole, aren’t I? She also has an allergy to latex, so my favourite condoms are out! —Wartied Sick
Dear Wartied,
“People find HPV hard to understand because they hear such conflicting things about it,” says Lyba Spring, HPV educator at Toronto Public Health. “So first, a primer.” (I’d like to add that HPV doesn’t help its intelligibility at all by being so deranged. Transitory, incurable, cancerous, benign… Jesus, H, make up your mind!). It’s important to get things as straight as possible, so once again, our ever-patient dame in the health domain lays it out for us:
“There are about 35 DNA types of HPV that affect and infect the reproductive system. The low-risk types tend to cause warts. The high-risk types can cause cancer, especially of the cervix and anus. People can also get infected with mixed types. When a person gets warts, they are usually transient. With or without treatment, they may come, and then go. A good immune system can clear the body of the virus. So, while it is true that it can hang around, it is also true that if a person had warts and then didn’t see any more for one to two years, chances are that’s the end of it unless you get infected again with a new partner.”
So here’s your bottom line: if your GF’s new diagnosis is a low-risk HPV and you contract it, it’s not fatal to either of you. If she has a high-risk type of HPV again, it’s only fatal to her if she doesn’t monitor and treat it—girls, 90 per cent of cervical cancer is preventable so get those Pap smears! “Guys can carry the high-risk types on their penis,” says Lyba, “but they are usually not harmful to them and they can’t be tested for them. They can, however, infect a male or female partner in the vagina or anus.” And you’re worried that she might give you warts? As for those hobgoblins, again the low-risk version of HPV, Lyba says, “There is nothing that ‘activates’ them. If you haven’t had them for a couple of years, chances are they’re from a new partner, but it’s very hard to be sure.” Honestly, could this virus be more capricious? It’s worse than German declension.
It is true that many people, especially young adults, have HPV. I personally am not one to scram over an STI and I would suggest that you too, gird your loins (and get used to Avantis because latex allergies are rampant now as well), for the bumps on the road of pleasure. She may be your first dirty bird but she sure won’t be your last.
