Dealing with HPV

[SchrodingersCat]

I once had an irregular pap smear, which means I may or may not have had HPV at some point in the past 5 years, and that I may or may not still be infected.

If you're a sexually active adult, there's an 80% chance you have had HPV at some point. At any given time, 20% of people are actively infected.

So when I'm having "the talk" with people, I don't say "I have HPV" and I don't say nothing. I say that I once had an irregular pap smear, which means that I may or may not have once had HPV, and that 80% of adults can say the same thing. Usually I find that sexually educated persons already know this and aren't worried about it.

In Canada, HPV is not part of the standard STI testing rounds, and most clinics will refuse to give it on the basis of cost. Or so I've been told by my provincial health care system when I tried to get tested for it after my irregular pap.

[opalescent]

Originally Posted by km34

When would you expect to be told?

Personally, I don't expect to ever hear from guys that they are HPV carriers. They have no way of knowing when/if it's active or even if it's in their systems. I know it's a risk I take with every sexual partner I have, and it's a risk I'm willing to take. I also don't see myself telling anyone after it's been inactive for 6 months to a year.

I personally would like to be told before things get sexual, before there's involved kissing or removal of clothes. I would not expect to be told during/before a first date but also wouldn't mind.

I don't know what I will do as time goes on and (hopefully) my body heals from HPV. I think I would still want to know and would still tell people but I don't know that right now. I will have to think about it.

I don't expect most men to tell me if they have or been exposed to HPV. Most don't know and can't know. However, people like your husband, and my recent partners, know and - to my mind - should tell their potential partners of the risk. But, again, people handle this differently and they are not 'wrong' to do so. This is just how I think about things.

[km34]

I told him originally that I thought he should tell any woman he sees by the 3rd date/in person contact. By that time, she is going to know him well enough that she can make an informed decision on whether or not he personally is worth the risk of known HPV exposure.

I don't mind telling people up front, before meeting, because it is fairly easy for me to meet people and it doesn't bother me if someone writes me off just because of this. If they do, it's more than likely someone that I wouldn't want in my life anyway, but it seems like it is much, much harder for him to meet people (schedule-wise and just being a man, I think lol) so I think in general it's more prudent to wait a bit.

He wanted me to get other opinions on this to help him figure out what HE thinks is best.

[turtleHeart]

Originally Posted by feelyunicorn

You can always network with others who also have HPV. If most people have it, you should be having more sex, not less!

j/k

While you're joking, I'll point out that there are dozens of strains of HPV. The Gardasil vaccine is for 4 of them, two of which are the high risk kind, which don't produce warts.

I got the vaccine after I was 26. I had to contact multiple places before finding one that asked me to show up in person for a reference to a place that could do it and upon arriving they said they'd do it but that insurance wouldn't cover it, so I paid cash.